So DC is doing this big project, \u201cBefore Watchmen,\u201d where they\u2019re publishing mini-series prequels about all the major characters in Alan Moore\u2019s Watchmen<\/i>. They\u2019re doing this against Moore\u2019s wishes, which is tacky, but they do own the rights, so they\u2019re doing it.<\/p>\n
So far, most of them (that I\u2019ve read; I\u2019m a couple of weeks behind) have been pretty good. But today I read Rorschach<\/i> #1.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m okay with the plot. The art is entirely adequate. But the writer does not have Rorschach\u2019s voice right.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m surprised. The writer is Brian Azzarello, who is generally a very good writer with a good ear for dialogue, and Rorschach\u2019s voice in Watchmen<\/i>, both the original comics and the movie, is distinctive and not that hard to imitate, so why did Azzarello screw it up so badly?<\/p>\n
Rorschach doesn\u2019t normally use unnecessary words. He drops pronouns and articles unless they\u2019re essential. Azzarello\u2019s narration gets this wrong. The only time the \u201creal\u201d Rorschach uses words he doesn\u2019t need is when he\u2019s ranting about the moral degeneracy of the world he lives in.<\/p>\n
Also, Rorschach doesn\u2019t ordinarily use profanity; that\u2019s part of his attempt to rise above what he sees as the filth around him. Azzarello has him calling drugs \u201cshit,\u201d which he would only do when berating a criminal, and only if the criminal had used the word first.<\/p>\n
So as one example, Azzarello\u2019s \u201cI\u2019ve spent days wading through garbage looking for shit\u201d should be, \u201cSpent days in garbage, looking for poison.\u201d Azzarello\u2019s version just isn\u2019t Moore\u2019s character\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n
Which is too bad.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, I thought J. Michael Straczynski pretty much nailed Dr. Manhattan in Dr. Manhattan<\/i> #1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So DC is doing this big project, \u201cBefore Watchmen,\u201d where they\u2019re publishing mini-series prequels about all the major characters in Alan Moore\u2019s Watchmen. They\u2019re doing this against Moore\u2019s wishes, which is tacky, but they do own the rights, so they\u2019re doing it. So far, most of them (that I\u2019ve read; I\u2019m a couple of weeks… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-generalities-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions\/830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}