Alan Moore, Watchmen and V for Vendetta

In December while going to India i had finished Watchmen by Alan Moore. Yesterday i finished another one - V for Vendetta.

To start with, they are not comics. They are known as graphic novels. Just the way Pixar movies are not cartoons, they are animation.

Watchmen: The reason i read this novel was a movie is going to come next month and i wanted to read the book before i watch the movie. The book is interesting, very unconventional, stark and has a bitter-sweet ending (which btw didn't impress me much). But the idea and the graphics are brilliant. So is the way the story is told to us. No wonder this book is the most celebrated graphic novel of all time.

V for Vendetta. I had to read this one. As i had written before here, i love the movie. So how good it the novel. To start with, the movie is much better. The novel is little bit incoherent, a little annoying at times (if you have watched the movie) and is not as polished as the movie. It is futile to give an opinion about the novel without mentioning the movie. But one thing that struck me was that the novel is very well thought off. Almost all (99%) of the ideas occuring in the movie are from the novel. The girl who writes V on the wall, the dominos, the explosion of parliament by train etc its all there in the novel. Not necessarily in the same manner it happens in the movie but its all there. In novel one can write that ABC thing is happening while Beethven's fifth was playing in background. The reader can imagine in his head what it would be like, but it is a completely different experience to read that thing while Beethoven's fifth is playing in your cd player and it is also completely different to see the scene with the music in background. V for vendetta does it. V for vendetta, the movie also pays tribute to Monte Cristo something which was not there in the novel. To me V for Vendetta understood the novel way better than it was intended and made a cult ouf it.

Afterword: I have seen Watchmen the movie now. Zack Snyder's movie is a decent effort, not great though. One thing to admire is that it is very committed to the book otherwise i think the fans would have slaughtered him. It is interesting how someone changed a novel and turned in into a cult movie and how another remained true to the book but (almost) killed it.