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I’ve been reading the Watchmen comic books, since there’s a movie coming out soon.  I saw the trailer during “The Dark Knight” last weekend, and had no idea who any of the characters were. Apparently, I took a hit to my geek cred because I’ve never read the series, which collectively is regarded as one of the best graphic novels ever.  Time Magazine even recognized it as one of the “100 Best English-Language Novels”.  Not bad for a comic book!

I’m about three issues into the twelve, and it’s an interesting story.  Watchmen may have been the first title to delve into the human flaws that exist in people, especially costumed avengers (a common practice among today’s anti-heroes in comics).   If masked adventurers protected the public, wouldn’t it be possible that one or two would be alcoholics or sociopathic killers?  Watchmen goes into these details, across two generations of heroes, while contrasting them against the changing times of America over the decades.

I especially like the metafiction that accompanies each chapter.   The first three end with printed excerpts from the memoirs of the first “Nite Owl”, previously retired. His book, “Under the Hood“, is a tell-all of the personal lives of his crime-fighting group, the “Minutemen”, which disbanded in 1947.  He describes his childhood and upbringing, then his break into crime-fighting outside of the law.  This helps to flesh out the character beyond the confines of the plot of the comic.

“Under the Hood“, fictional in real life but non-fictional in the Watchmen universe, also outlines how the political climate of America changed over time.  It goes from loving costumed heroes in the 40’s to loathing them as vigilantes in the 50’s, how it loops back again to the point where new crime-fighters appear in the 60’s.  And then back again when declining public sentiment causes the government to outlaw them in 1977.  Oh, and America won the Vietnam war and Nixon served five terms as president.

Now that I’m caught up on the back story, I’m looking forward to seeing the Watchmen movie when it comes out in March of 2009.  I’m also looking forward to finishing the series.  I’ve always enjoyed comic books, so I’m surprised that I’ve never read this one.  Probably because it was a DC title and the characters were not included in an ongoing canon (that would make them easy for me to skip).  Similar to “300″, I’d like to see how they adapt this comic to the big screen, and by that I mean IMAX.

This is my first official Father’s Day as a new father. It’s kind of nice. I spent some time at my cousin Dave’s house yesterday. He had a big Father’s Day cookout and most of my family showed up. Today, Chrissy and I went to her mom’s house, where we celebrate my birthday, Cassie’s birthday and Father’s Day all at the same time every year. I got in on Father’s Day this time too.

Chrissy ordered two medium cakes from Coldstone Cremery. One of them was dark chocolate and the other was cookies and cream with a White Sox logo topper. These cakes are painfully expensive and have actual cake layers in them, unlike Dairy Queen cakes. The chocolate cake was decadent — almost too much so. It was so rich that it was hard to finish a slice. We might have to go with Dairy Queen cakes next year…

Chrissy got me a Transformers hat for Father’s Day, and I spent a lot of time playing with Aiden. I didn’t have to do any yard work. I finally put up the scrapbook shelf in Chrissy’s office (I put up the shelves in my office and in the downstairs closet last week). And I found time to read a little of my Star Trek book too. So, this has been a really nice weekend.

I’ve never been so aggravated with a book that I would seriously think about writing a nasty letter to the publisher, until now. I really liked Star Trek Enterprise, so I started reading the books after the show was cancelled. It’s ok because there’s only a few them, and I’m not going to start reading the ungodly amount of other Star Trek books out there. That being said, aside from the book that was just a rehash of a TV episode (”Enterprise: Shockwave“), this book really pisses me off.

This is actually a very long, yet informative, rant, so click “Continue Reading” below to read the whole thing. Suffice to say that I was unhappy with this book, not just because it was written for the fifth grade level, but because the authors push their political agenda down our throats without so much as a reach-around. And I posted the review on Amazon.com to warn off other people ahead of time.