Books, or other works of art, quite often are credited for having done something for the very first time, even though they didn't. It just happened to be the first time that that something was widely read or recognised.
The Dark Knight Returns was not the first dark and violent version of Batman; the comics had been working their way around to that for quite some time. Watchmen was not the first 'realistic' discussion of superheroes; even discounting Moore's earlier work on Miracleman, you can find work that does that, if nowhere else in the underground. They're not the first, but they're the touchstones, like Neuromancer is for cyberpunk (even though The Movement had been going on for years), or The Matrix is for HK-style wire work in American action movies (even though Blade did it several years beforehand, just not as well).
We seem to like having defined paradigm shifts in art, to be able to point to a text or a work and call it a 'moment that everything changed,' even though art, being a facet of culture itself, usually shift by increments so small that we barely notice them. The touchstones--DKR, Watchmen, Neuromancer, even The Matrix--are usually just the first ones that were noticed by those who aren't on the 'inside,' the ones whose exposure to comics was mostly the old Batman TV show, or who aren't familiar with wuxia-style filmmaking at all. To them, the touchstones are new. To the initiated, it's old hat.
Posted by orion at August 14, 2006 5:56 PM