Looking at these, you might be confused about what the difference is and what you should read first. There’s the original series by Moore and Gibbons and there’s a range of character-focused collections called Before Watchmen. If you fall into that second group, then you’ve probably done a little bit of research and seen that there are more than one Watchmen graphic novel to read.

With all the buzz around the upcoming TV show, there’s fresh interest in the original comics with fans rereading it and many discovering it for the first time.

The series will act as a sequel to the 1986-87 classic and has been described by Deadline as “alternate history where ‘superheroes’ are treated as outlaws, Watchmen embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel while attempting to break new ground of its own.” Through the examination of works by, among others, the iconic female poet Forugh Farrokhzad, the expatriate author Goli Taraqqi, the controversial memoirist Azar Nafisi, and the graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis, this volume engages with the complex and contested discourses of religion, patriarchy, and politics that are the contemporary product of Iran's long and revolutionary history.With contributions by Mostafa Abedinifard, William Anselmi, Blake Atwood, Farideh Dayanim Goldin, Babak Elahi, Goulia Ghardashkani, Manijeh Mannani, Laetitia Nanquette, Safaneh Mohaghesh Neyshabouri, Khatereh Sheibani, Veronica Thompson, Madeleine Voegeli, and Sheena Wilson.Thanks to HBO, the world of Watchmen, the landmark comic series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, will be revisited in the latter half of 2019 with a TV series. These include both canonical and less widely theorized texts, as well as works of literature written in English by authors living in diaspora.Challenging neocolonialist stereotypes, these critical excursions into Iranian literature and film reveal the limitations of collective identity as it has been configured within and outside of Iran. In Familiar and Foreign, Mannani and Thompson set out to explore the tensions surrounding the ongoing formulation of Iranian identity by bringing together essays on poetry, novels, memoir, and films. Despite the Iranian government's determined pursuance of anti-Western policies and strict conformity to religious principles, the film and literature of Iran reflect the clash between a nostalgic pride in Persian tradition and an apparent infatuation with a more Eurocentric modernity. Such perceptions do not reflect the complex evolution of Iranian identity that occurred in the years following the Constitutional Revolution (1906-11) and the anti-imperialist Islamic Revolution of 1979. The current political climate of confrontation between Islamist regimes and Western governments has resulted in the proliferation of essentialist perceptions of Iran and Iranians in the West.

Watchmen novel