It’s been 35 years since Ozymandias dropped a giant interdimensional squid on New York City, killing thousands and destroying the public’s trust in heroes once and for all. And since that time, one figure in a fedora, mask, and trench coat has become a divisive cultural icon. So, what does it mean when Rorschach reappears as a gunman trying to assassinate a candidate running against President Redford? Who is the man behind the mask, and why is he acting this way? Now it’s up to one detective to uncover the identity of this would-be killer and expose a web of conspiracies that will change the world forever. Collects Rorschach #1-12.

In an instant, 15 million people are dead! What happens when the human psyche is forced to accept such a devastating truth? Follow the story of “the Kid,” a radicalized, gun-toting performer and the right-hand woman of the new Rorschach. See how this masked woman grows from an innocent child to the would-be cold-blooded assassin of a presidential candidate. This detective thriller will unravel the mysteries behind the assassination attempt and reveal how the struggles of these killers connect to larger turmoils of the world. Eisner Award-winning writer Tom King delves into the desperation that leads to radicalization and the questions that can lead a person into violence. Featuring art by new sensation Jorge Fornes with acclaimed colorist Dave Stewart.In an instant, 15 million people are dead! What happens when the human psyche is forced to accept such a devastating truth? Follow the story of “the Kid,” a radicalized, gun-toting performer and the right-hand woman of the new Rorschach. See how this masked woman grows from an innocent child to the would-be cold-blooded assassin of a presidential candidate. This detective thriller will unravel the mysteries behind the assassination attempt and reveal how the struggles of these killers connect to larger turmoils of the world. Eisner Award-winning writer Tom King delves into the desperation that leads to radicalization and the questions that can lead a person into violence. Featuring art by new sensation Jorge Fornes with acclaimed colorist Dave Stewart.

Wil Myerson might have been the creator of Pontius Pirate, the most popular comic in history, before he put on the Rorschach mask and tried to kill a would-be president, but he’s not the only artist who worked on the character. Other artists fell under Wil’s influence, and now all these years later, his more renowned acolyte has fallen sway to Laura, the #1 Myerson superfan. Is it possible she influenced another comic book legend into playing vigilante? The key here is that tape the detective is trying to decipher, the one with the séance that has been haunting him since the very first issue! All this and a cameo by Dr. Manhattan to boot!

To solve the attempted murder, the detective on the scene must first solve an actual murder. Before Rorschach and Laura can carry out their ill-fated plan to kill a presidential candidate, they first have to find a way into his political rally. Once that detail is uncovered, the rest should snap into place- especially if it turns out that their inside man was part of the rival campaign. The only problem is that man is dead, potentially killed by the very people he was trying to help, and as everyone knows, dead men tell no tales. Thank goodness, then, that crime scenes do! There’s only one more issue to go after this. Don’t miss out on one of the most intriguing comics of the year!

The end to the mystery is here! It’s been a long road to get here, and there have been a lot of dead bodies along the way, but the detective is very near closing the case. All the disparate threads lead back to the crime itself, to the assassination attempt that claimed the lives of the would-be assassins. Find out how it all went wrong for the comic book artist who put on a mask and declared himself Rorschach.

As the detective digs deeper into the mystery behind Rorschach and his sidekick, the story becomes about not what they wanted to do but why they started on their murderous path. As more witnesses emerge, the stranger Laura’s history is revealed to be. Tough times made her want to kill a presidential candidate, and she did a lot of damage herself when fighting back.

The detective has found where the source of this tragedy began. Where Laura learned to shoot, a place where she not only learned to kill but also has killed, and where she brought Rorschach to turn him into an assassin as well. As the timelines crisscross, the man trying to undo this mess only falls deeper into it.

Common tragedies can bind two people together, sometimes in all the wrong ways. The investigation into a famous comic book creator’s relationship with a deranged young girl takes the detective to places he never wanted to go. Witness how a woman raised to fear the squid invasion and distrust facts seeks a man whose creations embody strength, justice, and truth, and compels him to trade his paper heroes for flesh and blood.

SUNDAY TIMES 'BOOKS OF THE YEAR': 'the book develops into a bigger biography of the strange set of images [Rorschach] bequeathed, taking in everything from the origins of abstract art to the invention of the idea of empathy' – James McConnachie, Sunday Times IRISH INDEPENDENT 'BOOKS OF THE YEAR' The captivating, untold story of Hermann Rorschach and his famous inkblot test, which has shaped our view of human personality and become a fixture in popular culture. In 1917, working alone in a remote Swiss asylum, psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devised an experiment to probe the human mind. He had come to believe that who we are is less a matter of what we say, as Freud thought, than what we see. Rorschach himself was a talented illustrator, and his test, a set of ten carefully designed inkblots, quickly made its way to America, where it took on a life of its own. Co-opted by the military after Pearl Harbor, Rorschach’s test was a fixture at the Nuremberg trials and in the jungles of Vietnam. It became an advertising staple, a cliché in Hollywood and journalism, and an inspiration to everyone from Andy Warhol to Jay-Z. The test was also taken by millions of defendants, job applicants, parents in custody battles and people suffering from mental illness – or simply trying to understand themselves better. And it is still used today. Damion Searls draws on untranslated letters and diaries, and a cache of previously unknown interviews with Rorschach’s family, friends and colleagues, to tell the unlikely story of the test’s creation, its controversial reinvention and its remarkable endurance. Elegant and original, The Inkblots shines a light on the twentieth century’s most visionary synthesis of art and science.

Watchmen has been hailed as the quintessential graphic novel and has spawned a body of literary criticism since its 1986 initial appearance in installments. This work explores the graphic novel's reception in both popular and scholarly arenas and how the conceptual relationship between images and words affects the reading experience. Other topics include heroism as a stereotype, the hero's journey, the role of the narrator, and the way in which the graphic layout manipulates the reader's perception of time and space. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.