The Year of the Ox Reading 1: "Watchmen"

While in Amsterdam recently I decided to pick up a copy of "Watchmen." I read the individual comics years (nay, decades) ago and decided with the movie coming out to re-read it. Two decades is a long time between reads. Did it hold up? In some ways, yes. It still is a good comic. I am not going to worry about saying graphic novel, since that is just a nice phrase to make comic book geeks feel a little more mature. This is just a more advanced geeky comic (with real sex and boobies for the high school geek to appreciate). The characters are much more developed than in your average comic, but I am not sure that this only makes this a great work of literature. Time magazine listed it as one of the top 100 novels since 1923. But is it really better than "In Cold Blood," "A Confederacy of Dunces," or "East of Eden"? No, to be honest, it is not even as good as "The Swamp Thing" comic that Alan Moore wrote, or as good as the Hernandez Brother's "Love and Rockets" or Frank Miller's "Daredevil" was. It is mostly just a bunch of geeks feeling good about themselves.
That isn't to say I didn't enjoy re-reading it. It brings back fond memories. It is well written, but as one of the top 100 works in the last almost 100 years? Come on. A fanboy can only go so far.
So read this, see the movie, and then move out of your parents' basement and get a girlfriend already.