Tales of the Black Freighter Redux
This belongs directly under the heading of “Why didn’t I think of that?”[ComicBookResources] “The kid reading the pirate comic at the newsstand” is one of Dave Gibbons’ most famous images from “Watchmen,” yet the “Tales of the Black Freighter” portions themselves are rarely discussed. Naturally, due to Moore’s scheme of juxtaposing only short passages against the larger story of “Watchmen,” the pirate tale is generally thought of as a powerful narrative device; a comic-within-a-comic, but not really a remarkable story in its own right.
Well, just when you thought there was nothing left to say about “Watchmen,” … Oakland, California’s Steven Johnson … excavated and reassembled all that exists of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ “Tales Of The Black Freighter: Marooned” into a complete and uninterrupted narrative on the Web. Read more.
Johnson’s work can be read here. He imagines how that story would have been told in its entirely. He uses only the relevent panels from “Watchmen” — with the non-relevant dialogue removed. Said Johnson, “”Dave Gibbons did spectacular work and I can’t even begin to guess what he’d put in the ‘missing’ panels.” Those panels are blank with text only.
I don’t know writer Alan Moore’s reaction, but Dave Gibbons wrote Johnson to say “nice work.”
Indeed.
