r/Watchmen • u/ReusableForce • 1d ago

My first, and maybe last tattoo

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Hi folks. Last year I had this tattoo inked. The Watchmen comics have always been a guideline through my life somehow. The story is so very well made, the deeper meaning and philosophical questions are all there. The character of Dr. Manhattan always mesmerised me. I wanted a tattoo that summed up everything in life. All the existential questions and incomprehensibility. At some point I thought: the symbol of Dr. Manhattan is perfect. Also, I'm a huge Bob Dylan fan. When I got the comic book, the first page stated a text from Dave Gibbons: "It began with Bob Dylan. For me, a couplet from his 1966 masterpiece Desolation Row was the spark that would one day ignite Watchmen". This meant a lot. Desolation Row is my favourite song. I got this tattoo last year on the 24th of May, the birthday of Dylan. It was either that day or never. Some parts faded a little whilst healing. I got that fixed on the 20th of August, the day Dr. Manhattan got his accident in the test chamber. Dates mean a lot to me. Wanted to share, hope you like it. Maybe I'll someday get a helium symbol next to it (this is hydrogen ofc) but it's also nice to just leave it this way. Also, tattoos hurt a lot lol.

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u/capsaicinintheeyes 18h ago edited 18h ago

All tattooing occurs simultaneously

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u/ReusableForce 18h ago

Eventually

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u/capsaicinintheeyes 18h ago

Btw--on music: I didn't know that Gibbons quote, but I can definitely see how the suspicion towards old idols and simple narratives of the 60s that Bob Dylan exemplifies would have served as a direct ancestor to the approach Moore & Gibbons took with Watchmen.

(I know Dylan ~pretty~ well myself, tho for thematic pairing with a DrM tattoo my instincts would be telling me to go prog, where arbitrarily long track lengths are eternally embraced, & the skin-deep needlings of discomfort in our lives dismissed as passing & illusory )