A pretty abominable review of Watchmen at Slate, rescued from "Worst. Review. Ever." honors only by the sneaking suspicion that the author isn't entirely on the level:

Whether you take this self-reflexivity as evidence of a newfound sophistication on behalf of the comic book, or as self-hatred tricked out as superiority—that old adolescent standby—is up to you. Watchmen was unquestionably a landmark work, a masterpiece, even. Before Moore came along, comic books were not generally in the habit of quoting Nietzsche, or scrambling their time schemes, or berating their heroes for their crypto-fascist politics, or their readers for reading them. It was Moore's slightly self-negating triumph to have allowed it to do so. But did the comic book have to "grow up"? The last time I looked, the only ones reading Ulysses and quoting Nietzsche were teenagers. No adult has time for aesthetic "difficulty" or "self-consciousness." Life is too short. Frankly, we'd much rather be watching The Incredibles.

"Books are hard?" Surely you can't be serious.

I'm really looking forward to teaching an all-comics course one of these years, and you can bet that when I do Watchmen will be near the top of the syllabus. (via)