The Watchmen are coming…to television, courtesy of HBO. A show loosely based on the Watchmen universe is currently in development, under the supervision of showrunner Damon Lindelof (Lost). Recently Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Sara Vickers were added to the already selected cast of Regina King, Don Johnson, Louis Gossett Jr., Adelaide Clemens, and Andrew Howard, but without information about which characters any of the above will be playing.

The only thing that gives me hope that the new 'Watchmen' project might be decent (and I’m not overly optimistic) is that it plans to only ‘loosely’ use the original source material as its inspiration. The problem with filming Watchmen is that, more than other comics, it thrives on the nature of the sequential art medium (i.e. the comic book format) to tell its story and communicate its ideas.

Watchmen was originally, of course, one of the most celebrated comic book series of all time. Crafted by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons it was first released in 1986 to critical acclaim. Moore’s dystopian story arc presented in Watchmen introduced the world to memorable characters (inspired by the Charlton Comics heroes of the early 1960s) like Rorschach, Ozymandias and Doctor Manhattan.

Often the details of the plot, the symmetry of the panels, the very juxtaposition of images and words, is what gave Watchmen its depth and special status. I can remember reading and re-reading the original issues when they came out.

It was especially eventful for me, since, at the ripe young age of fourteen, I was probably too young to be reading the often very mature themes and material the book dealt with, but I was old enough to realize that this was not just another comic book series.Watchmen was an event, and one that effectively stretched the limits of what, in 1986, people thought the comic book medium was capable of doing.

Watchmen #1 (September 1986) – First issue of Watchmen

After release of the original series, Watchmen has gone on to spawn prequels (the ‘Before Watchmen’ comics), a movie (Zach Snyder’s 2009 take on the original series) and its characters are also currently featured at the center of yet another limited series event (see below). But all of those projects start with this comic. Given its cultural and artistic significance, you would think this comic would be worth a lot more than it is. It has won a Hugo award (1988), been voted one of the 100 best novels published in English since 1923 (in 2010 by Time Magazine) and is generally hailed as a modern classic. Reprinted since 1987 in trade paperback/graphic novel form (heck this series is one of the reasons the term ‘graphic novel’ caught on in the first place), it is nothing short of a cultural phenomenon at this point.

Given all that, it is surprising to see that 9.8 copies of first printings still sell for under $500.00. Returns are mostly strong: especially in grades of 9.0 or higher. Makes me wish I hadn’t read my original copy over and over and over. Full sets of the first printings also tend to fetch higher prices for this series.

Doomsday Clock #1 (November 2017) – Watchmen meets the wider DC Universe

Doomsday Clock, by Geoff Johns, is a maxi-series limited event that is in the process of integrating the original ‘Watchmen’ characters with those of the contemporary DC Universe. This comic is part of the DC Rebirth endeavor. I have to admit that this is a guilty pleasure of mine. I’ve been reading each issue as they come out, and I look forward to seeing how this series will actually turn out. While its impact is nowhere close to that of the original series that inspired it, and I’m sure I’d earn the scorn of Alan Moore if he knew how much I like it, I can’t help but enjoy it.

Sales and returns have recently dipped a bit on this series, which is understandable given its ambitious nature and the fact that it’s still not complete. Will this follow the original Watchmen in its appreciation in value? Time will tell, in the meantime we can only wait and see. If you want to seek this out as an investment, I recommend the lenticular variant ‘Rorschach head’ cover. Currently best returns are on 9.6 graded copies at % 4.7.