beyond watching the watchmen

last night i embraced my inner straight boy by being a comics dork – lining up for the first night to watch the watchmen (i even considered dressing up as one of the characters), only to be sneakily sabotaged by dr. manhattan’s floppy flaccid blue prick.


ok it’s not comics. it’s even listed as TIME’s best 100 novels of all time. but one look at the yellow & black cover plus the coloured illustrations with conversation balloons inside and my friend id gives me ‘the look’ (the one given to hopeless men) and says, “aren’t you supposed to be old enough to read something without pictures?”

still, watchmen was what got me to graphic novels. now i have a small but quite respectable loot including from hell, superman for all seasons, death of superman, 300, wanted, sin city volumes 1-7 and stardust (although, the last one is an illustrated story – there is a difference.) you may raise your eyebrow to a level higher than bebe gandanghari’s because they now all fall within the ‘tv/movie tie up’ category. but then again i can hardly stop the hollywood agents from transforming art to cheesy money makers, can i?

i digress.

so there i was, braving the long lines in front of the gay’teway cineplex till. shifting my weight from one foot to the other because i was so excited i needed to pee all the time. not because there was so much cruising in the cinema lobby, silly - because the trailers were really good. to get to this point, i left my boss’ mouth hanging open when I said no to his request for me to re-send that one last email (you know, the one he didn’t read and now it’s my fault) and convinced jp it was a cool movie, he had to go. it was going good.

we got the tickets with time to spare for a quick beer at café adriatico downstairs before the show. when we came up for the show, there was time enough to go to the loo for a pee. when we went to our seats i carefully inspected the terrain for toddlers or jologs who might insist on imposing their noise while I was watching my movie. clear. i was on a roll.

all was right in my world (the opening credits was a killer) until dr. manhattan appeared with his swinging blue cock. suddenly, the (straight) couple next to me started sniggering whenever the offending appendage made an appearance (which is – by rough estimate - about a quarter of the movie).

suddenly the movie seemed all too ridiculous.

don’t get me wrong, a built, ripped, buck-naked and shaved billy crudup (or whoever was his body double) in blue is not exactly appalling. and I’ve always found soft cocks endearing in their vulnerability. but how can i take his existential pronouncements seriously when there are people around me who can’t get over his incandescent flopsy?

the movie ended with me feeling cheated.

i had the urge to rummage through my graphic novel collection, looking for clues why i found this one so precious. and there, (edited from the movie) I found my dr. manhattan again when he said…


‘The world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget... I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from the another's vantage point. As if new, it may still take our breath away.’

go watch the movie and try not to be distracted by the naked moviestar playing radioactive-nuclear-disaster-survivor-turned-superhero. better yet, read the graphic novel.