Tales of the Black Freighter

Snaking in and out of key moments in Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen is a Brecht bleak pirate yarn from in-universe comic Tales of the Black Freighter. A marooned mariner desperately tries to make his way home ahead of the nightmarish Black Freighter, an enormous galleon that doubles as a roaming, ship-sacking, hell-thing. Stranded in hungry waters, the sailor plumbs deplorable depths to try and survive long enough to save his family and town - apparently next on the Freighter's hit list. Designed to comment on and contrast the actions of the various leads, Black Freighter is yet another layer to an obsessively composed fiction.

Quite unable to feasibly work in a live action element that reflects this metafictioning, the producers of Watchmen: The Movie hit upon the idea of rendering it as a simultaneous released DVD animated movie. In theory it keeps the fans happy, whilst happily existing as self-perpetuating product, taking up shelf space in HMV and Borders as purchasable advertising. It's the same model that saw Batman: Gotham Knight crowding shop space in light of The Dark Knight's cinema release. Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter, as the DVD press release trumpets it, needn't be any good; which means it is all the more exciting that it is good. Very good, in fact.

This Black Freighter tale can proudly stand alongside the For the Man Who Has Everything episode of Justice League Unlimited as superior examples of Alan Moore adaptations. Gerard Butler's manic performance as the sailor spews out largely unmolested tract, lingering on the detail and incident of a rapidly maddening mind. The narration a pounding motor, driving a psychologically abusive overview of this hero's suffering. Liberties have been taken elsewhere, the role of First Mate Ridley has been greatly expanded, becoming a projected counterpoint to the Captain's decaying faculties. An understandable embellishment considering the tiny amount of actual panel room attributed to the story. Flying under the money-man radar, animated Black Freighter - like the aforementioned JLU episode - is left tonally intact, with only minor structural tailoring for a new medium.

A few too-crisp colours aside, this short thankfully does not possess the bright, pastel breeziness of modern computer afflicted animation. Instead, Black Freighter is awash with pitiless blacks and rotting greens. It's a departure from John Higgins' luminously putrid four-colour work on the comic, but well in keeping with the found item mandate that hangs over this and the Under The Hood documentary supplement. Likewise, Dave Gibbons' minutely composed figures are gone too, replaced with an in-era animation work that recalls European long form works like 1981's Heavy Metal. The relentless grue on display only adds to this effect, perfectly presenting Black Freighter as some long out-of-print video nasty. Tales of the Black Freighter is twenty odd minutes of near intolerable horror. You couldn't ask for more.

We are promised that at some stage in the near future this animated short will be woven into the larger form of Snyder's Watchmen, for a bells and whistles Ultimate Edition set. It's difficult to see how that could work, both tonally and mechanically. Are we literally going to dive into the newsstand patron's confused train of thought as he muddles through the impenetrable comic? Bernie, the reader, repeatedly states that he's straining to make any sense of his chosen pamphlet (perhaps a Moore aside about his audience?). I shouldn't think quite that much nitpicking consideration has gone into this decision, it is just another way to placate any fans left wanting by the film. As if straining to fit even more adaptation into the movie will somehow make it a more worthwhile endeavour.

Frankly, from this position of total final edit ignorance, it seems a disservice to both mediums. It perpetuates the strangled notion that comics are simply printed storyboards just begging to be enlivened with Hollywood money. On the motion picture end of things, it's an incongruous cartoon forcing its way in, interrupting the film's already idiosyncratic narrative. In-joke asides for the ruthlessly pigheaded. Does Watchmen: The Movie need thirty minutes of bleed-in animated misery? Or should this adaptation be allowed to stand on its own terms? I think this tale from the Black Freighter is quite capable of the latter. I will admit though, it would be a kick to hear Butler's agitated ramblings ringing out over boiling point 1980s New York. If it simply has to be in another edit, Black Freighter should bleed into the film, rather than interrupt it.

I was originally going to close out this review bemoaning the unethical business practices on DC's behalf that have put paid to us seeing anymore such work. Moore was rumoured to be interested in expanding a line of Black Freighter titles as a concession to DC's sequel demands. The comic world sincerely needs a putrid, frothing, pirate serial and Moore was well placed to deliver. With my thinking cap on though, it seems quite apparent that a lot of these ribald impulses have found their way into Moore's Kevin O'Neill collaboration The League of Extraordinary Gentleman. The forthcoming three issue volume Century respins The Threepenny Opera as an unfolding horror, for example. Besides that, I'm also looking forward to taking receipt of the first issue of Jamie Delano and Max Fiumara's alarming new seven seas serial Rawbone. Read Joe McCulloch's review here.

There's more tales in that Black Freighter.