Chapter Six: Hello From the Cracks (The Abyss Gazes Also)
The line, of course, belongs to Rorschach, the glamorous poison at the heart of Watchmen’s appeal. Moore is self-effacing about the character these days, joking that his popularity is down to the fact that Moore “had forgotten that actually to a lot of comic fans that smelling, not having a girlfriend – these are actually kind of heroic.” But unlike a lot of Moore’s self-deprecation, there’s an edge to this quip. He’s emphasizing his failure to anticipate the reaction to Rorschach, but only as a means to insult Rorschach’s fans even more spectacularly. There are obviously a lot of things about Watchmen that have gone sour for Moore, but at times it seems that there is nothing he resents quite as deeply as the reception of Rorschach.
In some ways it’s no wonder. It’s not just the throngs of fans eager to tell Moore how much they admired Rorschach, a phenomenon that is surely associated with the sudden spike in Moore’s popularity that turned comics conventions into deeply unpleasant experiences where he felt crushed and mobbed (the usual anecdote is the time a fan followed Moore into the bathroom to get his autograph, but his recurring nightmare of hands grabbing at him perhaps more accurately captures the sense of horror Moore felt at this). It’s also the sorts of people who identify with Rorschach, a list whose most eye-popping member is perhaps 2016 US Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz, who included him along with Spider-Man, Wolverine, Batman, and Iron Man on a list of his favorite superheroes. Given that Ted Cruz is a warmongering homophobe opposed to any form of social welfare, this is, to say the least, not the sort of endorsement Moore was seeking. And while Cruz is just one (deeply idiosyncratic) datapoint, the truth is that it’s not hard to see why a lunatic right-winger famous for alienating virtually everybody he’s ever worked with might view Rorschach as an aspirational figure.
The fundamental problem at the heart of this is simply that Rorschach is an unsettlingly fascinating character. Even Moore, for all the reservations he would come to have about him, freely admits that “Rorschach was one of the characters I enjoyed writing most.” And no wonder – think of a classic line in Watchmen and the odds are overwhelming that you’re thinking of a Rorschach line, probably either a bit of his opening monologue or “none of you understand. I’m not locked up in here with you. You’re locked up in here with me.” Whether or not one relates to the character, he is undeniably compelling, reliably giving the book a jolt of energy whenever he shows up.
And Rorschach’s frightening glamor is essential to the book’s function. He is, after all, the hook upon which the first issue relies to draw the reader in. Watchmen is drenched in apocalyptic paranoia, but it is Rorschach’s Son of Sam-inspired mutterings about gutters full of blood and human cockroaches and dusks that reek of fornication and bad consciences that readers see first, and Rorschach’s single-minded quest for retribution in the face of armageddon that drives the initial investigation of the Comedian’s murder, even before it’s particularly clear who the Comedian was.…