If you’ve never read Watchmen (what’s the matter with you? Go read it now!) then this requires some ‘splainin’. In the graphic novel there’s this kid who’s reading a pirate comic book at a newsstand. The comic book, Tales of the Black Freighter, is shown to us the readers as a “story within a story” and it parallels a lot of what’s going on in the greater scheme of Watchmen. Zack Snyder didn’t have enough time to include it in the feature film adaptation of Watchmen, but it’s important enough that it’s coming to us next month as an animated feature on DVD and Blu-ray! And the word is that months afterward when Watchmen itself is released for home consumption, that an “ultimate edition” will be coming out that splices together the live-action movie and the animated Tales of the Black Freighter.

So with that ...