Watchmen Coloring Update

James Romberger argued in this post that the coloring in Watchmen covered up Sally Jupiter’s nudity in this panel. As James puts it, “The colorist has obscured where Gibbons drew Sally’s shorts and stockings pulled down in panel 4, which represents a typical male reaction to rape, at the time and often still.”

My brother Eric suggested in comments that their might have been a coloring change from the original. I have those, so I’ve duly scanned in the panel in question.

Some of the values are slightly different, but I don’t see any significant change…? James, what do you think?

13 thoughts on “Watchmen Coloring Update

  1. Is there some other way to read this?
    In panel one the man is about to take down his pants.
    In panel two the woman is being raped.
    In panel three the man has just finished and is pulling up his pants.
    In panel three the woman’s pelvis,next to the calf of the standing figure, should be a flesh tone as suggested by the dialog, “Cover yourself up.”

  2. Hmmm…nope, that’s almost the same as it is in the collection. But the netting on the left leg (our left) does look folded over to me, it changes orientation and it’s not from any garter I can figure, and her bum could be miscolored as well, and despite that HJ’s comment COULD refer to her usual outfit, it seems unlikely—shit, I’m so done with this.

  3. To me, his demeanor towards her is so contemptuous that he has to be talking about her usual dress, at least in part. I think, also, that someone in production at DC, whether the colorist or someone else, either intentionally or accidentally mis-colored what should be flesh-tone there in the original. The netting absolutely looks folded over.

  4. But just barely, right? I guess I shouldn’t be debating without a copy of the book nearby for reference…but it’s not like her regular outfit is that much less revealing, is it? I guess I’ll need to re-read it and consciously look at this question, but in my memory, Hooded Justice gets angry at the Comedian for raping Sally, but then gets REALLY angry when the Comedian makes a suggestion about HJ’s sexual arousal. That’s when he sends The Comedian out of the room and delivers that last cold line to Sally. I don’t see a decent reading of that scene that doesn’t have Hooded Justice putting an unfair portion of blame on Sally for the entire situation, and that has to be related to how prominent sex is in her outfit.

  5. Which version was that “panel in question” you scanned from, Noah?

    Looking at the only copy of Watchmen I have accessible (The paperback “album” collection, surely printed from the same negatives as the individual issues), the dark blue of Sally’s stockings is so dark, you can hardly see the pattern of the stockings.

    It’s not clear whether that is exposed is bare flesh or her panties (Higgins’ color choices are often pretty damn peculiar), but some heavy shadowing is clearly suggested by the coloring in my copy.

    But this…

    ————————
    James says:

    The colorist has obscured where Gibbons drew Sally’s shorts and stockings pulled down in panel 4, which represents a typical male reaction to rape, at the time and often still.
    ————————-

    …sheesh! Yes, a colorist suggesting shadows via darker tones is yet another example of how those “typical males” cover up the ugliness of rape.

    ————————–
    Jason Michelitch says:

    …I don’t see a decent reading of that scene that doesn’t have Hooded Justice putting an unfair portion of blame on Sally for the entire situation, and that has to be related to how prominent sex is in her outfit.
    —————————

    Yes, HJ is quite the repressed jerk, as his reaction to the Comedian’s on-target jab indicates. (Into autoerotic asphyxiation, perhaps?)

  6. “Into autoerotic asphyxiation, perhaps?”

    It’s been a while, but I don’t remember whether Watchmen says whether HJ was actually into autoerotic asphyxiation or not. I seem to remember the Comedian using this as the cover story when he murders HJ, and the other Minutemen fall for it.

  7. What I meant was that panel 4 represents a typical male reaction to rape (“cover yourself up”) but yes, if the miscoloring “coverup” was deliberate, that would also be par for the course. I recall that at EC, Marie Severin said she would sometimes use her coloring to obscure bits of art that made her uncomfortable. In this case, it has led to this nitpicking over what is actually being represented. I’m glad that Jason, at least, sees what I see. I wondered if my analysis of these few panels hasn’t been a bit of a distraction, but it does seem that the same confusion that the characters have about what happened between Blake and Jupiter also is seen in the readers and will probably also be present in who is trying to extend the story in the odious BW comics; the covers certainly indicate that this is so.

  8. There’s no confusion in the folks doing Before Watchmen, I don’t think. Watchmen’s adult themes will be used in the same way they’ve been used in comics for the past decades; as an excuse to ramp up violence and sex for their own sake and for an overwhelmingly male audience.

  9. ———————-
    Alan Jeffrey says:

    “Into autoerotic asphyxiation, perhaps?”

    It’s been a while, but I don’t remember whether Watchmen says whether HJ was actually into autoerotic asphyxiation or not…
    ———————

    Nah, that was a joke: the guy wears a noose around his own neck, after all!

    (And as flipping through the book reminded, HJ was found shot through the head…)

  10. Perhaps because this business split to 3 posts, I had somehow missed that one woman weighed in this one, the first comment in fact by Holly, who saw what Moore and Gibbons put in there to see. Pity that so many men can’t or won’t.

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