The Annotated Watchmen was written for several reasons. The series is packed with detail, more so than almost any other, and much of that detail is easily missed. Much of the background of the world is not given straight out, but has to be inferred. There are several ongoing motifs that are worth spotting. My goal in annotating the series is to highlight and explain all these points.

The Annotations are intended for the second-time reader, someone who's read through once, knows the basic plot, but missed a lot of the detail and wants to find it. If you are reading them along with your first reading of the series, you may find that it spoils some of the surprise. Caveat lector. (I have removed most of the blatant spoilers from earlier editions.)

A few conventions are worth explaining. The reason I quote newspaper headlines and signs is that some of them are hard to read, and I'm trying to save eyestrain on the reader's part. Although some of the headlines have text larger than the dialogue, I decided to be consistent and quote them all.

References such as 4:12:2 are to issue:page:panel (so the example would refer to issue #4, page 12, panel 2).

Dates are used in the American convention of month/day/year, so 8/9/74 (Nixon's resignation) is August 9, 1974, not September 8.

All comments and feedback are welcome. I have removed specific acknowledgements with the intention of adding them in one large chunk to the Appendix at some later date.