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Hoberek, a professor of English at the University of Missouri, demonstrates that works like Alan Moore's Watchmen find a more natural place among this list due to the ability of readers to portray them as having a single author – or as a collaboration between one author and one illustrator, in the case of Watchmen – which reinforces a preference toward auteurs.
In portraying Moore and Gibbons as auteurs, Hokerek examines the self-conscious manner in which they used the comics medium both to elevate and deconstruct comic books while also commenting on the nature of the superhero as a subgenre. The layered storytelling of Watchmen, which critics cite when discussing its literary value, developed over the course of its serialized publication. Hoberek further examines how Moore articulated his politics through the comic, questioning the “nostalgia of eighties conservatism” as a defense against “Cold War anxiety” with a frankness rarely seen in mainstream American comics then appearing on the newsstand.<ref> Hoberek, Considering Watchmen, 141.</ref>
Referencing the nature of the business, Hoberek argues that the rise in auteurs was only possible through the shift to a direct market for comics sales as opposed to the older, newsstand based model. He explains, "Moore and [Dave] Gibbon's story has been – both covertly and overtly – enormously influential on what has very recently become the newly genre-positive mainstream of contemporary literary fiction." <ref>Andrew Hoberek, Considering Watchmen: Poetics, Property, Politics (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2017), 30. </ref> Hoberek's work serves not only as a valued contribution to comics studies, but a primer in the theory that underlies that work. He interweaves elements of literary criticism with interviews of Alan Moore and others in the comics industry to paint a complex picture that demonstrates how comics can be both literature and a distinct medium.
