Basket.

My family returned from England this past week, bearing an unbelievable range of goodies, chief among which were graphic novel heavyweights Maus and Watchmen, a work on the fall of the Roman Empire which looks very good indeed, one of Erik Durschmied's newer books telling the tales of our past century's forgotten "history-makers" (from the German Feldwebel who took Fort Douamont all by himself to physicist Louis Slotin - the inspiration for Alan Moore's Dr Manhattan - why? Look it up.) and an excellent copy of Paul Kennedy's sweeping The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, for future re-reading.

Speaking of which, Watchmen is still amazing the third time through. In fact, it seems to get better every time I read it, and that has to be the hallmark of an amazing work. Suffice to say that if you think our present universe is a shithole, the Watchmen universe is even more of one; it's a world where even the omnipotent are vulnerable.

To reveal more would be to move into spoiler territory, so let's stop there. But if you can ever get your hands on it, read this book. It's nothing short of brilliant.

Unfortunately, From Hell was not to be found, except for a special copy of something on Amazon that was going for something like a hundred British pounds. A quite faintly ridiculous price, even for such a great work. But I would love to read it again, because I always miss plenty of stuff when I read something the first time around.

From Hell, of course, got made into a film. So did V for Vendetta and a Watchmen is coming up. Graphic novel-to-movie adaptations never ever do justice to the original work. Not that I expect them to, because it is astonishingly difficult. How, for instance, is even the most talented filmmaker to replicate Dr William Gull's meandering, menacing journey around London with his coachman Netley? Or capture Tales of the Black Freighter in a movie? It's not possible. But that's no excuse for turning V for Vendetta into a straight fight between good and evil, and ending it with a peaceful velvet revolution. From Hell did a better job, with Johnny Depp convincing as the drug-addled Inspector Abberline; a performance so good it can be forgiven for being a liberty taken with the text. However, the ending was just as poor, and if you are ever going to watch it, this is a spoiler: Mary Kelly doesn't die. Instead, some random French girl sleeps in her bed and gets carved up by Dr William Gull. Kelly lives out her life in a peaceful country cottage surrounded by children.

What is it with happy endings, really? I just wonder how they are going to change Watchmen.