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Googling 'vice-president Ford' and the 'Keene Act' : the discovery of Watchmen's uchronical universe, twenty years after publication

Michel De Dobbeleer (UGent)
(2011) STUDIES IN COMICS. 2(1). p.159-175
Author
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Abstract
Having grown up entirely within the Franco-Belgian comics tradition, I confess that I read Watchmen for the first time in 2009. On page 2, I realized that I would need to look up several historical facts and names in order to make sense – more than twenty years after publication – of the complex background of gloomy Cold War tensions against which the action takes place. (Vainly) desiring to get the full picture and bridge the cross-cultural gap(s), I Googled terms like ‘Vice-President Ford’, ‘KT-28’ and ‘Keene Act’, which made me realize that Watchmen, to my surprise, has its own ‘Wiki’, and more important, that it displays a uchronia, or alternate history. Different scholars have fruitfully studied Moore’s playing with the narratological levels of story and discourse. While they have focused on the manipulations at the discourse-level, this article divides the story in separate levels to probe the mechanisms of reading ‘uchronical’ comic stories. Partially inspired by Wolf Schmid’s narratological model (2008), I hypothesize the level of ‘uchronical Geschehen’. Comparing Watchmen to some other uchronical works, I try to explain why Alan Moore’s gradual disclosure of the alternate-historical information generates two particular ‘uchronical reading pleasures’.
Keywords
Google, Watchmen, narratology, reading process, comics, alternate history (uchronia)

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MLA
De Dobbeleer, Michel. “Googling ‘vice-President Ford’ and the ’Keene Act’ : The Discovery of Watchmen’s Uchronical Universe, Twenty Years after Publication.” STUDIES IN COMICS, vol. 2, no. 1, 2011, pp. 159–75, doi:10.1386/stic.2.1.159_1.
APA
De Dobbeleer, M. (2011). Googling “vice-president Ford” and the ’Keene Act’ : the discovery of Watchmen’s uchronical universe, twenty years after publication. STUDIES IN COMICS, 2(1), 159–175. https://doi.org/10.1386/stic.2.1.159_1
Chicago author-date
De Dobbeleer, Michel. 2011. “Googling ‘vice-President Ford’ and the ’Keene Act’ : The Discovery of Watchmen’s Uchronical Universe, Twenty Years after Publication.” STUDIES IN COMICS 2 (1): 159–75. https://doi.org/10.1386/stic.2.1.159_1.
Chicago author-date (all authors)
De Dobbeleer, Michel. 2011. “Googling ‘vice-President Ford’ and the ’Keene Act’ : The Discovery of Watchmen’s Uchronical Universe, Twenty Years after Publication.” STUDIES IN COMICS 2 (1): 159–175. doi:10.1386/stic.2.1.159_1.
Vancouver
1.
De Dobbeleer M. Googling “vice-president Ford” and the ’Keene Act’ : the discovery of Watchmen’s uchronical universe, twenty years after publication. STUDIES IN COMICS. 2011;2(1):159–75.
IEEE
[1]
M. De Dobbeleer, “Googling ‘vice-president Ford’ and the ’Keene Act’ : the discovery of Watchmen’s uchronical universe, twenty years after publication,” STUDIES IN COMICS, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 159–175, 2011.
@article{2053215,
  abstract     = {{Having grown up entirely within the Franco-Belgian comics tradition, I confess that I read Watchmen for the first time in 2009. On page 2, I realized that I would need to look up several historical facts and names in order to make sense – more than twenty years after publication – of the complex background of gloomy Cold War tensions against which the action takes place. (Vainly) desiring to get the full picture and bridge the cross-cultural gap(s), I Googled terms like ‘Vice-President Ford’, ‘KT-28’ and ‘Keene Act’, which made me realize that Watchmen, to my surprise, has its own ‘Wiki’, and more important, that it displays a uchronia, or alternate history. Different scholars have fruitfully studied Moore’s playing with the narratological levels of story and discourse. While they have focused on the manipulations at the discourse-level, this article divides the story in separate levels to probe the mechanisms of reading ‘uchronical’ comic stories. Partially inspired by Wolf Schmid’s narratological model (2008), I hypothesize the level of ‘uchronical Geschehen’. Comparing Watchmen to some other uchronical works, I try to explain why Alan Moore’s gradual disclosure of the alternate-historical information generates two particular ‘uchronical reading pleasures’.}},
  author       = {{De Dobbeleer, Michel}},
  issn         = {{2040-3232}},
  journal      = {{STUDIES IN COMICS}},
  keywords     = {{Google,Watchmen,narratology,reading process,comics,alternate history (uchronia)}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{1}},
  pages        = {{159--175}},
  title        = {{Googling 'vice-president Ford' and the 'Keene Act' : the discovery of Watchmen's uchronical universe, twenty years after publication}},
  url          = {{http://doi.org/10.1386/stic.2.1.159_1}},
  volume       = {{2}},
  year         = {{2011}},
}
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