SOURCE: Harris-Fain, Darren. Review of Watchmen, by Alan Moore. Extrapolation 30, no. 4 (winter 1989): 410-12.

In the following review, Harris-Fain praises Moore's narrative technique in Watchmen, noting that the work is “a fascinating experiment in broadening a limited genre which deserves wider attention that it has received.”

The year is 1985: Nixon is still president, America won the Vietnam War, cars run on electricity, and super heroes are real. It is the existence of these heroes that Alan Moore uses for the premise of this alternative history, which appeared between 1986 and 1987 as a twelve-issue series from DC Comics.

Moore, whose earlier credits include 2000 A.D. and DC's Swamp Thing, teamed with artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John Higgins to produce this starkly realistic book. Critics noticing recent trends in the comics industry cite Watchmen as one of the examples of increasing maturity in the field.

This “maturity” can be found at...