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When acclaimed artist Dave Gibbons sat down to create epochal comic book series Watchmen with writer Alan Moore, neither had any idea what was to come.

"I don't think we ever thought that we were going to produce the Citizen Kane of comics," Gibbons confessed in a lengthy interview with Wired.com.

The painstaking process of creating Watchmen – a transformative title that remains as vital today as when first published in the mid-'80s – is recounted in Watching the Watchmen, Gibbons' behind-the-scenes art book that offers a deep peek into the making of one of speculative fiction's finest releases.

Contest: Win a Free Copy of Dave Gibbons' Awesome Watching the Watchmen

Recently released to coincide with the mounting buzz surrounding Zack Snyder's cinematic adaptation of Watchmen, which is due in 2009, the big, beautiful book collects Gibbons' exhaustive notes, sketches and other material into one of our choice stocking-stuffers of the holiday season.

Watching the Watchmen also carves out a well-deserved corner of comics fandom for Gibbons' artistry, which has often been overshadowed by Alan Moore's outspoken genius.

"People unacquainted with graphic novels, including journalists, tend to think of Watchmen as a book by Alan Moore that happens to have some illustrations," says Gibbons. "And that does a disservice to the entire form."

Unlike Moore, whose distaste for Hollywood and cinematic versions of his work is legend, Gibbons has gotten behind Snyder's movie with gusto. He's impressed by what he has seen already and hungers for more, but it's no wonder: His artwork is directly quoted at length by the film. In fact, Snyder once showed me his sketchbook for Watchmen, which in some sections was a panel-for-panel lift from the original. That kind of homage could keep Watchmen loyalists, especially the cynics, at bay when the film finally drops.

Whatever the fan reaction, Gibbons' own legend is secure. From his acclaimed work on Watchmen, 2000 AD and Doctor Who to DC Comics' crown jewels like Batman, Superman, Green Lantern and more, he has proven to be one of comics' greatest artists. Wired.com landed some lucky minutes with Gibbons to talk about his new book and the upcoming film, and why sucking on a sugar-coated chili is better than sucking on a sweetie.

Wired.com: Did you have an idea that your Watchmen sketches, notes and other marginalia would someday merit their own book?

Dave Gibbons: I didn't know that the sketches, notes and other stuff would merit its own book, but I did know it was worth holding on to. I kept them for the years that I was actually working on the book, because I had to refer to them. I wasn't sure when I would ever have to draw that intersection again, or the interior of Hollis Mason's apartment. So it all ended up very nicely in the drawer and stayed there for 20 years.

It was only when the movie came up and I was talking to DC Comics about some other things that I mentioned that I had all this stuff, and it just occurred to me that it might make a very interesting book. I've always been a fan of behind-the-scenes work, and knew that it would make the kind of book that fans like. I've always had a bunch of behind-the-scenes books on my shelves, from Batman: The Animated Series to Alex Ross. I always found them fascinating, and DC Comics thought it was a good idea as well. When we actually inventoried what I had, it was clear we had enough to make an interesting book. And it also offered me a chance to put down my memories of the various anecdotes and stories that I have told about Watchmen over the years.

And it was almost a requirement of mine that Chip Kidd design it. I've got a lot of books designed by him, and he's got a wonderful way of making things very tactile. You feel you are holding the actual sketch or scruffy old napkin in your hand. I always feel that makes the book feel very rich.

[Note: Keep an eye out for Wired.com's upcoming interview with Kidd, who also worked on another of 2008's best comics art books: Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan.]

Wired.com Did Watchmen feel momentous in its early stages?

Gibbons: Not really. It was momentous for Alan and I personally, because we had enjoyed working together in the past and always wanted to do something bigger. And here was DC giving us 12 issues to do whatever we wanted. They got us to come up with our own characters after deciding that they wouldn't give us their newly bought Charlton Comics characters, probably because they thought they could get more mileage out of them. God knows, we got enough mileage out of the Watchmen characters. But yeah, in a personal sense it felt momentous because we knew we had a big canvas on which we could get down so many things we found interesting about superheroes.

Wired.com: When did it hit you that it was going to stand the test of time?

Gibbons: I don't think we ever thought that we were going to produce the Citizen Kane of comics. It really didn't extend beyond the idea of collecting the 12-issue run, which we couldn't envisage at the time. The fact that it is still in print 20 years later? No, we had no clue.

I suppose it hit me that it was going to stand the test of time after it started selling out of its reprints. It's been a cumulative thing. I suppose the accumulation of sales, reprints and the fact that every new generation that comes into comics seems to rediscover Watchmen is the way that its fame has hit me.

Wired.com: You and Alan worked on the clever Future Shocks from 2000 AD, so were you two in a groove by the time Watchmen came about?

Gibbons I really did enjoy working on Future Shocks with Alan, particularly "Chrono Cops," which is a really involved tale of time travel, where people meet and hide from themselves and all sorts of shenanigans. Which was not an easy thing to draw, but was tremendously rewarding, and why I think Alan said at that point that anything he asked me to draw, I probably could, and that gave him a feeling of great possibility.

Immediately before Watchmen, Alan and I also created the Superman annual "For the Man Who Has Everything," which was a great joy. Not only was it Superman, the crown jewel in the comics firmament, but it was also for the editor Julius Schwartz, who had reintroduced so many of the characters that we loved from the comics of our youth.

So yeah, we were really in a good groove. There always seemed to be a lot of common ground between us. Alan writes in a very visual way, and I draw in a story way. We've always enjoyed working together.

Wired.com: How does Watching the Watchmen illuminate your working relationship, and what is your relationship like now?

Gibbons: It certainly talks about the mechanics, the kind of organic collaboration where ideas and themes were batted backwards and forwards. We're still friends, but we don't talk as frequently as we did back in the days when we were doing Watchmen. But we keep in touch. Like so many friends in comics, we don't often speak for months or even years, but then we just pick up the conversation where we left off.

Alan has specifically asked me not to talk to him about Watchmen anymore, because he has decided to distance himself from the movie and its accompanying circus, which I completely respect. But I last spoke to him about two months ago, and we speak from time to time. I'm going to be doing some illustrations for a book he is doing next year, so the frequency of our conversations will increase.

Wired.com: Do you feel that Watching the Watchmen properly highlights your hard work on the novel, which has sometimes been overshadowed by Moore's irascible quotability?

Gibbons: Yeah, in many ways, it's always been journalistic shorthand in the past to give Alan the lion's share of the credit. Obviously, he deserves a huge amount of it, and I would never want to take away anything from what he has done, not just on Watchmen but his other series, too. But people unacquainted with graphic novels, including journalists, tend to think of Watchmen as a book by Alan Moore that happens to have some illustrations. And that does a disservice to the entire form, because comics are stories in words and pictures.

To marginalize either aspect shows a misunderstanding and under-appreciation of the form. And Alan is scrupulous about giving credit; there's never been a problem between us. Certainly in Watching the Watchmen, I tend to get a lion's share of the attention, but I think perhaps that's appropriate since it's a picture book. But Alan does give very good quotes.

Wired.com: How has it felt to revisit all of this material? What are your thoughts the second time around?

Gibbons: Obviously, I was very familiar with all of this material at one time. I could remember every piece of paper that I had, so going through it again was a bit like archaeology, or going through old family photographs. "Hey look, I'd forgotten all about this!" That sort of thing. So it was an interesting process of discovery to see what I had kept.

The second time around, I am amazed by how much thought we put into Watchmen, how hard we labored over every detail. But I think that is one of the reasons for its longevity. In comics, there are depths that don't reveal themselves immediately, and the stuff that you might consider anal about Watching the Watchmen – like the notes where I plot the rotation of a perfume bottle through the air – might not be particularly obvious to anyone who reads it. But those who do will note the consistency, the reality behind it all that exists in great depth. It gives it a more magical quality, which it wouldn't have had if we just made things up as we went along or changed it to suit the latest continuity. It does give it a feeling of authority.

Wired.com: About the movie ... Warner Bros. is marketing Snyder as a visionary director, but he's using the most famous comic of all time as a storyboard. Is that jumping the gun?

Gibbons: I think Zack Snyder is arguably a visionary director. I do think that he has got a very sharp, clear and idiosyncratic vision. Much as he is using the comic book as a storyboard, the way that he has assembled it and the way he has introduced his own images into the film shows that he is a man of incredible vision. Naturally, I am very flattered that the compositions I came up with are included, from the costumes to further details, but I don't feel that Zack is riding on my abilities at all.

I think a movie is a very different beast than a comic book. Zack could no more visualize the comic book than I could visualize the movie – although I am perhaps selling myself a bit short! [Laughs] But I wouldn't want to take away from Zack. I think he's brought a lot to the project, and I am very happy with his interpretation.

Wired.com: How are you feeling about the film so far, having seen its progress from the inside?

Gibbons: I am feeling very optimistic about the film. I have been pleased with everything I have seen, and every successive thing I see makes me feel better. I've seen parts of it now three or four times, and I can still watch them again very happily. Like a graphic novel, there are depths of detail and meaning in film that give themselves up on a first viewing, and I am really looking forward to getting the director's cut of the DVD so I can go through it frame by frame. Which itself is a similar experience some have the first time they read Watchmen, and which the film is cruelly denying me! [Laughs]

Wired.com: Will the film's necessary compression of Watchmen's dense narratives and sub-narratives only make the book look that much better? Someone coming to the comic from the film is probably going to have his or her mind blown.

Gibbons: I don't know about better. Different, certainly, as things are very compressed in the film, which has done a wonderful job on that count. There are things left out, and there are other things paradoxically inserted, acting as bridge material, which is great. But I do think people who come to the comic after seeing the film will get much more from it. Things will be explained to them. Like I said about the DVD, it'll be like seeing the director's cut of the movie slowed down so you can watch it at your own pace. Which of course is the beauty of graphic novels and comic books in the first place.

And there are some sub-narratives and background material that will only come from the graphic novel. It's not like one will replace the other. Hopefully, it will be the same dense, interesting narrative told in two different ways, although Watchmen was designed to be read as a comic book. That is its prime medium. You would be selling yourself short if you didn't read the comic.

Wired.com: Do you think readers of today are patient enough for that kind of visual and narrative complexity?

Gibbons: I think readers are always patient. Look at the Harry Potter series. Some have given up on this generation of kids as game and TV addicts, but lots of people spend lots of time patiently reading through hundreds of pages of dense prose. I think reading a comic by comparison is a lot more immediate. With the Watchmen comic, we attempted to tell it in an accessible way. I deliberately made the artwork very clear, deceptively so. You think you're sucking on a sweetie, but it turns out to be a sugar-coated chili.

So yes, I think today's readers are patient, and visually sophisticated. I have spoken to some who have read Watchmen, and it took them a while just to understand how to read a comic. Do you look at the pictures, then the words? The words, then the pictures? Do you look at the whole page and then come back and read it? I think you read a comic in any way you want to read it. We all have our own behavioral psychology.

Photos courtesy Titan Books

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