Watchmen Makes You Earn It

I finally finished Watchmen, the heralded graphic novel that treats super-heroes as realistically as a Henry James novel treats consciousness, and it was an engrossing read-- it requires total commitment to get through a page-- the level of detail in the frames is astounding, the shifting genres are always perfect in tone, and the plot is dense and complex . . . and if you suffer through the cold, dark, corrupt world-- including the comic book within the Watchmen universe, the tale of the Black Freighter-- then there is a reward at the end: some traditional comic book fun . . . I can't wait to see how they did it in the film version.