I have the head of Jack Kirby in my office.

I built it myself.  Which means, this being the late-postmodern 21st Century, I stole it from someone else and then tinkered with it until it became a transformative work.  What I actually did was steal the Hanson Robotics-designed android head of Philip K Dick off an airplane, resculpted the front and filled its brain with the work of, interviews with and anecdotes about Jack Kirby.  Like the original Philip K Dick head, it now does the work of an oracle of that mysterious time, the 20th Century, and of the seminal years of a 20th Century art form.  In the case of Phil Dick, this was the science fiction story.  In this case, it is of course the comic book.

One of the reasons why Watchmen so captivated and engaged me is that Alan Moore is a writer of ideas, but like all of the best writers he gives the weight of the work to the reader, pushing gently when the need arises, but never pushing too hard, or too far.  Another reason is the pitch perfect way it deploys colour: the art in each of the twelve chapters of Watchmen burns itself into the reader’s mind, reinforcing the message of the writing when required, and frame by frame giving a very special visual momentum to the narrative.  Here is one page from the book’s final chapter:

Everyone should try to read Watchmen before the film adaptation is released.

The above image is a scan of a two-page spread from Akira, a Japanese manga by Katsuhiro Otomo.  It is a fantastic series, and well-worth reading (try to find the original black and white version currently published by Dark Horse).  Here is a summary from the Wikipedia page on the manga:

Akira is a black and white serial manga or graphic novel by Katsuhiro Otomo.  Set in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo, the work utilises conventions of the cyberpunk genre to detail a saga of turmoil.  Initially serialised in the pages of Young Magazine from 1982 until 1990, the work was collected in six volumes upon completion by Japanese publisher Kodansha.  The work was first published in an English language version by the Marvel Comics imprint Epic Comics, one of the first manga works to be translated in entirety.  Otomo’s art on the series is considered outstanding, and the work is a breakthrough for both Otomo and the manga form.  An identically titled anime film adaptation was released in 1988, shortening the plot, but with its structure and scenes heavily informed by the manga and its serial origins.

A key character in Akira is the city itself, Neo-Tokyo, a new urban area constructed in the aftermath of the nuclear war that devastated the “old city”.  This “new” Tokyo is constructed on top of Tokyo Bay: