Watchmen, in comic book form, is as good as it gets. You cannot overlook the fact that it is specifically tailored to the unique attributes of the comics medium. Just as there are some novels that do not lend themselves well to screen adaptation, there are comics as well, and Watchmen is an excellent example.
For every work of literature that has been adapted into a great film, there are many more that have been adapted into mediocre films–and much of that is down to the simple fact that movies are not books and books are not movies. Not every story ever written fits easily into multiple media, and it’s not really making much of a case to cite examples that are.
The Watchmen that reaches the screen will, at best, be a woefully incomplete and two dimensional version of the real deal. At worst, it’ll be the kind of clusterfuck you can usually expect from comic book adaptations.
I think that is one of the exact reasons why the two mediums aren’t really that analogous, speaking back to Zephy’s point about the self controlled pacing ofa comic book story versus a movie or television story.
^Agreed, then again…wasn’t it stated previously that Alan Moore was aiming at making it 6 issues, but DC told him to extend it and as such we got additional issues which focused on the background of the characters?