Revelations in the Wink of an Eye by Jeffrey Lewis

Description

Revelations in the Wink of an Eye: My Insane Musings on Watchmen, from Conspiracies to Stupidities

The long-awaited complete and completely mind-blowing Jeffrey Lewis analysis of Watchmen is finally here, in a fully revised 2024 edition! 

Watchmen is one of the most critically-acclaimed graphic novels of all time (possibly surpassed only by Maus), in addition to being one of the best-selling. The twelve-issue series by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, originally published in 1986-1987, famously went on to become the only comic book included on Time magazine’s list of the 100 greatest novels since 1923. Despite such levels of popular and critical success, and a number of published biographies and assessments of its author, up till now nobody has published a fully comprehensive analysis of Watchmen itself. Performer/writer/artist Jeffrey Lewis has been writing and lecturing on Watchmen since 1997, giving popular talks on the subject in America, Europe, England and Australia; now he collects this work into one digestible, enlightening and entertaining volume, including all the necessary illustrative quotes of images from the source material.

Analysis of pop culture has often delved into music and film but there has never been an analysis of a comic book like this… because there has never been a comic book like Watchmen. Both in its deconstruction of the superhero genre and its reconstruction of the comic book medium Watchmen remains a uniquely compelling twentieth century cultural landmark, and, selling strongly for decades, it is long overdue for a critical treatment that goes deeper than normal appreciation or annotation. Revelations in the Wink of an Eye is a fan letter that carefully justifies itself, a mega fanzine of rare depth and insight. Get ready for a dazzling close look at the hidden themes and symbolic interplay that combine to make Watchmen tick. No matter how many times you’ve read Watchmen you may never see it—or any comic book—the same way again!

Jeffrey Lewis has written for History, the New York Times, the Guardian (UK) and other notable institutions (and was awarded a Webby for Best Writing on the Internet in 2010), in addition to doing writing/illustration/comic book work for projects published by Verso, Hill and Wang, For Beginners and others. Featured a number of times on NPR, Jeffrey has released many albums of his own songs on record labels like Rough Trade Records, Moshi Moshi and Don Giovanni Records. He tours the world with his band Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage, as well as writing, drawing and publishing his own comic books, including the recent series Statics.