Contributed Notes for Chapter VII
Jordan Orlando At the risk of irritating you [nah!] I just wanted to point out something you missed: a detail following Dan Drieberg's nightmare. You write: >VII.18.3 Dan smears fog from the window. -- but if you examine the frame again you'll see that Dan has (inadvertently?) drawn the bloodstained "smiley face" icon -- with condensation drops as the "eyes" and a cloud-bank as the "mouth." (Remember, he's SEEN the real button, and presumably was the one to wash the blood from its surface before "returning" it to the earth in Chapter II.) Unconsciously presaging this frame, Laurie contemplatively wipes dust from Dan's goggles at the beginning of the chapter, imposing the "smiley face" upon a reflection of the Owlship in the goggles. (That last is particularly interesting--sort of a "doubling" or mirroring of Dan and Laurie's contemplation of each other; since the Owlship is the locale for their eventual coupling.) Yee ha! That's what I call really reading. This one's subtle but I'm convinced. Actually I knew this one was there but didn't want to seem TOTALLY paranoid. The author of this note, Jordan Orlando, is a novelist and Web designer who lives in New York City. His first novel was published by Simon and Schuster in 1993. Jordan, I have to wonder -- are you any relation to the legendary Joe Orlando? (See V.27.Doc1 -- or just about any major DC masthead...)
Joshua Merrill VII.1 The dust smear on the goggles and on Archie is almost like the blood smear on the Comedian's smiley face. VII.16 During Dan's dream, the silhouette of the two skeletons is like the silhouette of the Hiroshima lovers. Almost like the picture in Dan's dream is what happened right before the Hiroshima lovers were burned onto the wall. VII.22.7 The picture of Archie rising from the building looks like the picture of Veidt's alien sitting on top of the Institute for Transspatial Studies. VII.28.9 Archie, the clouds and the moon almost form a smiley face. Almost? Aww... -- sam
Patricio Lopez-Guzman VII.22 I just finished reading Watchmen and I'm overwhelmed by the book. It's inmense in its depth and its art. BTW there is something interesting that nobody has mentioned, on chapter VII page 22 in the 7th panel on the bottom right hand side corner you can see two silhouettes making love... weird...
Ethan Heitner VII.25.7 Dreiberg has just seen Laurie for the first time in costume during the entire "present" continuity of the series. This is clearly what allows him to perform sexually later on in the issue, the idea of the costumes and what they represent -- and in this panel, Archie's bridge is extending outwards towards the building. The tenants say "Get back! It's pokin' somethin' at the building!" I think this is a Freudian image, the bridge representing, of course, Dreiberg's renewed potency. Reading too much into it? Perhaps. But I thought it was kinda neat. Especially when you see how happy Dan seems to be throughout the rest of the sequence (look at page 26, panel 2). He's found out that he's capable, as a hero and as a lover. See Editor's Note to VII.27.13. -- sam |