Borders is delighted to be able to share with you, an interview with Dave Gibbons, the creator of the definitive Graphic Novel - the Watchmen.

You have produced new illustrations of key shots from the Watchmen movie. How did you find the experience of re-imagining your own work?

It was kind of strange actually! There was the original thing, then the movie based on that and I had to base the drawings on the movie and be faithful to this. There was almost a degree of detachment from the original work that it made me feel like I hadn’t really done the original work. I hope that makes sense! And in a way I wasn’t re-imagining it…I was doing a fairly literal job of doing a line drawing of exactly what appeared in the movie. So it was rather more of a commercial art commission than the creative experience that creating the original illustrations was. Although I tried to give them the same kind of feeling, the same kind of lineweight and I certainly used the same tools to draw them with.

Was it a difficult challenge to draw these illustrations of scenes from the movie considering you’ve been drawing your own interpretations of these iconic characters/locations for years?

I suppose in a way I have already answered that. Yes it was. There is Watchmen the graphic novel as I created it, that I can draw straight off my head because I drew it so much over the years. Then there is Watchmen the movie. It’s a product in the real world that needs to have accurate drawings made from it. So there are two different mindsets.

Comparing the new illustrations with your original panels from the graphic novel, do you feel you have changed as an artist?

Undoubtedly I have. I may be the worst person in the world to see that. Certainly I drew the original graphic novel in a specific style and I haven’t always used that style. Watchmen was drawn with a very hard pen to get a very deadweight line on it and then textures and blacks and everything. That isn’t exactly the way I tend to work now, though I kind of went back to that way of working to draw these new Watchmen illustrations because I wanted them to have the feel of the originals.

Based on this experience and looking back at your previous Watchmen illustrations alongside the new ones for the movie, how has the process of drawing a comic changed over the years?

Well I suppose the most significant thing is that we now have computers. You can draw on a computer and certainly do corrections. I do that all the time rather than get white paint and fiddle about on the original. If I want to redraw a detail I always do that onscreen. More and more I am using the computer to draw comics. There is a wonderful program called Manga Studio which is fantastic for drawing comic books, including all the tools you need. I have also been using a Wacom Cintiq Tablet, which is pressure sensitive, but with a screen inside it, so you have the sensation of actually drawing on the screen. It’s just like drawing artwork and you can change the size of the image and the orientation of the boards. So it sits in front of you exactly as a piece of illustration board would. And of course when it comes to colouring whereas with Watchmen originally, John Higgins had to do colour guides with annotations of precise formulae for colours on a Xerox copy, it’s now done on screen. It’s so much controllable than it was before.

Watchmen: The Art of the Film also contains concept pieces for other interpretations of the characters from artists such as John Cassaday. What do you think of their takes on your character designs?

Very interesting to see! It’s always a great thrill to see your creations through other people’s eyes. John is a fantastic artist as are Adam Hughes and David Finch as well. And I thought they did some really striking concepts. Interesting in fact that the movie people went much closer to the graphic novel, particularly with the Owl-Ship. Though I loved David Finch’s design for that, which was very Matrix inspired. And I guess it’s a useful thing when you’re designing a film to get different people’s takes on it so you can incorporate details. I guess John’s Nite Owl costume was pretty close to the movie costume, so they obviously had their effect. It was a tremendous thrill and as I know John well and know Adam quite well, it was a thrill to see what my friends had done when asked to provide a different take on my work.

When were you first aware of the scope of how huge the Watchmen phenomenon had become?

It was probably after we had done three issues and we went to New York. People were coming up to us in the DC offices and saying “This is fantastic! This is great! This is such a groundbreaking comic!”. They were actually coming out of their offices to shake us by the hand, and various freelancers were slapping us on the back. I think that was the first time I realised that we had some kind of tiger by the tail. So I suppose that was our first inkling, and once the entirety of the book had come out, people seemed to be at a fever pitch about it. Then when it was collected as a graphic novel, we realised this wasn’t an every day thing. Going on tour to publicise the book, we got feedback from readers, retailers and fans, which really tipped us off that this was more than just a project we were doing for our own interest.

Watchmen along with a few other key titles is credited for starting a wave of comics geared towards adults. Was Watchmen a conscious attempt to improve the reputation of comic books for a wider adult audience?

No, really it was an attempt to do the kind of comic book that we wanted to read ourselves. There was no high or worthy purpose, or any great planning or aspiration with it. That very much came afterwards. I think if we had set out, thinking along those kind of worthy lines, it wouldn’t have been as much fun as it was. And arguably the final project wouldn’t have been so interesting. I think you have to give the audience ‘what you do’ rather than give them ‘what they want’.

Did any other artists inspire the style you used for Watchmen?

You can see a lot of Steve Ditko in there I think: his panel layouts, the nine-panel grid. Rorschach in his antecedence had characters like Mr A. or The Question. Other artists were Will Elder, who was the great MAD artist who would cram his panels with insane background detail and Harvey Kurtzman whose storytelling on MAD comics was a huge inspiration to both Alan and I. Also a lot of European artists had a documentary style to their work, so I drew the comic with a single weighted line, to get that gritty feel over.

Do you think the themes of Watchmen are still relevant today?

Yes, though it’s more war against terror paranoia, than cold war paranoia. I think people have always been paranoid, and the idea of a master plan uniting people against a common enemy is as old as civilisation and there are certainly Greek legends about exactly that. So I think that is always relevant, and as long as people continue reading Superhero comics, there will always be relevance. And I think to a wider audience, just for its examination of superheroes and telling what seems to be a genre story, but what is actually a deconstruction, is a theme that is an interest to people.