Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre #1

[aeka]

First, Laurie's childhood:





And now the mother and daughter relationship during adolescence:





This is indeed a good read. Also Amanda Conner + Darwyn Cooke. I recommend everyone to get it. :3

Comments

[robinzegblu]

I'm especially happy about the layouts. The old Watchmen nine-by-nine. That's one thing I thought was missing from Minutemen.

[shadowpsykie]

you know what? I noticed that too! i never realized how much story benifited from that pattern.

[darkknightjrk]

Outside of the first two pages, Minutemen does follow the three tier line that Watchmen does--Cooke just plays around with the panel types and expands/contracts a column on a page.

[salinea]

... an owl poster? Really?

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Of course! Everything is connected to their childhood!

[medster_comics]

I wasn't really a fan of watchmen, but silk spectre and minute man made me one.

[randyripoff]

I thought it was a good story, but I was really hoping it would be about the original Silk Spectre. Seems to me we got plenty of stage time for Laurie in Watchmen.

[aeka]

The original Silk Spectre is featured in the Minutemen book by Darwyn Cooke. It's not a book about her exclusively but it does tell her story from the time she fought as a superhero.

[lucky_gamble]

Like the lay out but the writing seems so heavy handed. Broken snow globe, owl poster, music in the back, blah, blah.

Still checking it though. It deserves a chance ( I love me some Silk Specter in a platonic way)

[mrstatham]

The snowglobe is a callback to the main series, and as a piece of iconography, well, Cooke would be a fool not to use it.

[leoboiko]

oh but it’s so dramatic and serious

[darkknightjrk]

Doesn't seem any more heavy-handed than the original, really.

[kenn_el]

I liked the art. The story was cute, and would be well paced for an ongoing series, but for a mini, where Laurie should eventually become Silk Spectre, part of Watchmen, and enter into a relationship with the Doc, it seems off. I'm probably still a bit disappointed in Sally's portrayal in Minutemen, though. I expected, as in the original series, for Sally to be in the game largely to get publicity (along the lines of Flamebird), but still to be an honest-to-goodness Mystery Woman. Instead, the point seemed to be that all her actions were staged, in which case, why the push to pass the legacy to Laurie? It wasn't 'real' in the first place.
I liked the art, though.

[icon_uk]

I think it depends on whether Sally KNEW they were staged, and I suspect she didn't, so she IS doing the genuine "Mystery Woman" thing as far as she is concerned. How she will react when she finds out will be interesting I suspect.

[darkknightjrk]

I'm thinking it's going to be less about filling in every part of Laurie's story but more about the moment where she decides for herself to become Silk Spectre, which will probably have something to do with what happens when she's in San Francisco.

[halloweenjack]

Part of the push that Sally is making is for Laurie to do it right, both as some sort of vindication for her and also in case her daughter comes across someone like Eddie Blake, who Sally was no match for. That's my interpretation of both the original story and this, any way.

[eyz]

I'll get this one just for Amanda Conner^__^

[aeka]

Her artwork is quite delish for this book. ^_^

[halloweenjack]

Has anyone run pages from her collected art book? Because I've got it, and it's quite nice.

[runespoor]

Art <3

I also really like the line "you're too young to hate. Wait until you're older and the world gives you a good reason." It's not particularly right, but it's a very good line.

[shadowpsykie]

like robinzegblu said, i love the use of the nine-by-nine pattern i also enjoy the use of the background music, as music played a significant role in Watchmen.

one question what do Laurie's friends "Know?"

[robinzegblu]

That Sally was the Silk Specter. Apparently every family in town has a copy of that Tijuana Bible and the most popular girl in school has seen "Silk Swingers of Suburbia" for some reason.

Honestly, if I were Laurie I'd be a little more curious about these kids' reading habits than embarrassed about my mother.

[tsunamiwombat]

Alan Moore is spinning in his coffin.

He's not dead, he just sleeps in a coffin. Arms crossed, Adams Family style. In the basement. Upstairs is pink roses and a shrine to his anaconda god.

[darkknightjrk]

You're WRONG.

He sleeps in the belly of his snake god. I hear it's very warm and cozy in there.

Say what you like, but....

[capt_satellite]

It's very easy to cast aspersions on revisiting a classic like THE WATCHMEN, but were there people at the dawn of the Silver Age that smothered the rebirth of The Flash, Green Lantern, and all the rest? Does that mean Stan and Jack should never had revived Captain America or the Sub Mariner because the characters were, in some way, sacrosanct? That situation Kirby/Simon and Cap is very much like that of Moore/Gibbons and THe Watchmen? I will certainly grant you that Alan Moore has every right to feel the way he does given the terribly shabby treatment DC had given him., not to mention the dumbing down, to various degrees, of the film adaptations of L.O.E.G., FROM HELL, and V FOR VENDETTA. One might make the argument that they would better have been left alone...that's the beauty of the comic form....you do things that are almost impossible to reproduce in any other form. I do think WATCHMEN came the closest....they did reduce Veidt to James Bond villain status by stripping the whole subplot of bringing artists, mages, sages, scientific geniuses, technicians, and other creators to bring a horror worthy of HP Lovecraft to life to save the world. Without that, you lose the enormity of the calculatingly cold nature of Veidt's mind. but good, god, in so many other respects, they accomplished something perhaps only SIN CITY had done....accurately bring the material to the screen.

After last week, I had my doubts.....THE MINUTEMEN, visually, was a mess.

But goddess bless Amanda Conner for making lightning strike the same place a third time. They got SILK SPECTRE right, and they did it by deconstructing the ARCHIE comics. The art is such a joy, and Cooke came off better this time (I have no doubt Ms. Conner put some of her soul into the word, too).

So, who are we to say they never should have tried?

Re: Say what you like, but....

[capt_satellite]

And may I say, Amanda stayed true to her own style while channeling just enough of Gibbons to make it work. That's what we missed last week....the art was too far off what my expectations were. That's not to say it isn't any good, but again, kudos to Ms. Conner.

[jlroberson]

It looks beautful, but it's Conner: nothing she draws doesn't. The color is amazing, and her facial expressions are spectacular. All these things are true and Amanda Conner is a very talented cartoonist and I respect her greatly and even learn things when I look at her work.

It's still wrong.