After Midnight

Contributions by Apryl Alexander Alisia Grace Chase Brian Faucette Laura E. Felschow Lindsay Hallam Rusty Hatchell Dru Jeffries Henry Jenkins Jeffrey SJ Kirchoff Curtis Marez James Denis McGlynn Brandy Monk-Payton Chamara Moore Drew Morton Mark C. E. Peterson Jayson Quearry Zachary J. A. Rondinelli Suzanne Scott David Stanley Sarah Pawlak Stanley Tracy Vozar and Chris Yogerst <p/> Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons's <i>Watchmen </i>fundamentally altered the perception of American comic books and remains one of the medium's greatest hits. Launched in 1986--the year that changed comics for most scholars in comics studies--<i>Watchmen </i>quickly assisted in cementing the legacy that comics were a serious form of literature no longer defined by the Comics Code era of funny animal and innocuous superhero books that appealed mainly to children.<br> <i></i><br><i> After Midnight: Watchmen after Watchmen </i>looks specifically at the three adaptations of Moore's and Gibbons's <i>Watchmen</i>--Zack Snyder's <i>Watchmen</i> film (2009) Geoff Johns's comic book sequel <i>Doomsday Clock</i> (2017) and Damon Lindelof's <i>Watchmen</i> series on HBO (2019). Divided into three parts the anthology considers how the sequels especially the limited series have prompted a reevaluation of the original text and successfully harnessed the politics of the contemporary moment into a potent relevancy. The first part considers the various texts through conceptions of adaptation remediation and transmedia storytelling. Part two considers the HBO series through its thematic focus on the relationship between American history and African American trauma by analyzing how the show critiques the alt-right represents intergenerational trauma illustrates alternative possibilities for Black representation and complicates our understanding of how the mechanics of the show's production can complicate its politics. Finally the book's last section considers the themes of nostalgia and trauma both firmly rooted in the original Moore and Gibbons series and how the sequel texts reflect and refract upon those often-intertwined phenomena.