Take for example the character of Dr. Manhattan. After a mishap in a science laboratory, Dr. Manhattan is no longer human. Not old does his blue skin make him stand out from the other characters of Watchmen but so do his speech bubbles. While humans' speech bubbles are the typical white, Dr. Manhattan's are as blue as his skin. By making his speech bubbles distinct, the reader's attention is automatically heightened when he or she goes to read Dr. Manhattan's dialogue.
The other text that stands out is the narration that comes from the pages of a young boy's comic book. Instead of a plain square box to give narration on the current events happening in the same panel, this narration looks like it is written on an old scroll of parchment paper.
This text box signals to the reader a metaphor. The text written on the scroll does not directly explain the actions within its panel, but the events happening in the boy's pirate comic book. However, those events from the pirate comic book can be tied metaphorically to the current panels of Watchmen.
This tactic seems very sophisticated in my opinion. Prior to this comic, we have only seen metaphors in image, not textual metaphors. I believe Watchmen challenges the distinction between comic books and literature because of its effort to tell a story through collage.
I agree that the manipulation of text boxes in "Watchmen" is innovative and contributes to the creators ability to convey information and capture the reader's attention. I was also struck by the manipulation of text in Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns." In this comic, Miller departs from comic form conventions in numerous ways. One of the ways in which he does so is in using text as image. For instance, in scenarios containing onomatopoeia, Frank Miller portrays text as image. The onomatopoeia fill entire panels and are drawn colorfully and in block letters, meant to simulate the resulting sound. Although there are obvious similarities between "Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight Returns," both depart from standard comic structure in different ways and it seems that Moore and Gibbon's departure is subtler.
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