Watchmen Chapter VIII: "Old Ghosts"

Spoiler warning: If you have not read Watchmen, do not read these notes. See intro/disclaimer.

Cover: The cover image of this chapter is that of Hollis' retirement statue, surrounded by various other souvenirs of his adventuring days. The theme of this chapter is the past, oddly enough, since it has no flashbacks. In the picture on the wall, the Comedian's right eye is obscured by the cigarette smoke.

Page 1: The panels in this conversation come in pairs.

Page 1, panel 1: Hollis' memorabilia with a can of beer...

Page 1, panel 2: ...and Sally's memorabilia with a bottle of "Nostalgia".

Page 1, panel 3: Hollis' point of view, looking over his phone to the television...

Page 1, panel 4: ...and Sally's point of view, same.

Page 1, panel 5: Hollis' Minutemen picture and a book about him...

Page 1, panel 6: ...and Sally's Minutemen picture and a book about her.

Page 1, panel 7: Close-up of Hollis' picture, centered on him...

Page 1, panel 8: ...and close-up of Sally's picture, centered on her, and well-meshed together in two panels.

Page 1, panel 9: Outside of Hollis' home.

Page 2, panel 1: Outside of Sally's home.

Page 2, panel 2: Side view of Hollis' hand on armrest...

Page 2, panel 3: ...and side view of Sally's hand on armrest.

Page 2, panel 4: Hollis' feet.

Page 2, panel 5: Sally's feet.

Page 3: "Marooned" and Watchmen once again trade off narration of each other.

Page 3, panel 1: The "Hiroshima lovers": a physical ghost-like appearance.

Page 3, panel 2: The newsvendor remembers the "Spirit of '77".

Page 3, panel 3: The newsvendor remembers his dead wife.

Page 3, panel 7: The newsvendor is talking to Malcolm; we've seen this panel before, indicating that we're still chronologically in the middle of the events of chapter VI.

Page 5, panel 4: "A few skeleton's are bound to keep jumping out of the closet." Of course, that's not all that's come out of the closet.

Page 7, panel 1: Rorschach busted Big Figure in '65, so that was back when he was "Kovacs pretending to be Rorschach." Most of these cons that have grudges against Rorschach probably don't know what he's like since '75.

Page 8, panel 8: "Sweet Chariot" sugar is a reference to the hymn "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" in which the chariot was to carry the hymnist to the afterlife.

Page 9, panel 1: "...you don't smoke." the detective says as he surveys Laurie's "cigarette" in the ashtray.

Page 9, panel 9: "Suddenly, we have a deadline." What's that deadline? It's...

Page 10, panel 1: "October thirty-first, nineteen eighty-five." There, that's all straight.

Page 10, panel 5: A dollop of glue falls on the Comedian's right eye.

Page 10, panel 6: The sixth panel on this and the next five pages narrates the seventh and final silent panel.

Page 11, panel 3: "Oh, it's plenty cold enough where that's headed." Antarctica, of course.

Page 11, panel 4: Shea is talking about "Marooned".

Page 11, panel 6: This is the only look at the "alien" before the final chapter.

Page 12, panel 1: "God knows what these people have instead of brains..." Like what, pumpkin guts?

Page 12, panel 2: "...an acceptable face..."

Page 12, panel 4: Nova Express is, of course, owned by Pyramid Deliveries, which is owned by Adrian.

Page 12, panel 6: A drop of pumpkin "blood" lands on the jack-o-lantern's right eye.

Page 13: "Marooned" once again narrates the action.

Page 14, panel 3: "Too warm in there?" The first of two times the cons misinterpret Rorschach's actions.

Page 15, panel 4: This looks a lot like VI.24.4.

Page 17, panel 2: "...he's climbin' up on his bunk, like a little kid." The second time.

Page 18: Dan narrates Rorschach's chase.

Page 22, panel 3: "Guess I want somebody to wave a wand and make it all better, y'know?" Yeah, that would be one of those, um, what is it called?

Page 23, panel 3: "...deus ex machina..." yeah, that was it. And of course, an excellent description of Jon. And of Adrian's plot to stop nuclear war.

Page 26: "Marooned" narrates the knot-heads journey to Hollis' home.

Page 27, panel 1: Clock at five to midnight.

Page 27, panel 5: Hollis' memory (or fantasy?) isn’t quite holding up to his present situation.

Page 28, panel 7: A drop of blood falls on Hollis' face in the photo.

Page 29: The issue of the New Frontiersman that we saw in this chapter. While most of this seems to be paranoid rambling, the "Missing Writer" article comes surprisingly close to connecting some dots that would uncover the truth of the conspiracy that nobody else begins to suspect.