Who wrote the graphic novel Watchmen?

Alan Moore wrote the graphic novel Watchmen.

Watchmen was illustrated by Dave Gibbons, with colors by John Higgins. DC Comics published the story as a 12-issue limited series from 1986 to 1987, and later collected it as a graphic novel.

The story is set in an alternate United States where superheroes have affected political history, including the Vietnam War and the Cold War. Its intricate structure, moral ambiguity, and recurring visual motifs helped make it one of the most influential works in comics.

Watchmen was inspired partly by characters from Charlton Comics that DC had acquired. Because those characters were unavailable for direct use in the planned story, Moore and Gibbons developed new counterparts, including Doctor Manhattan, Rorschach, and Nite Owl.