Who would you like to see in a mooovie

Media Outlet Comic Book Forum
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Kind of pressed for time here, but it’s the fine details of a comic like Watchmen–not the generalized story–that push it over the edge from good to great. Yeah, Alan Moore scores points for fleshing out the characters to a degree that you typically don’t see in the superhero genre, but it’s the book within a book, the repeated symbols tucked away in the backgrounds, the supplemental pieces and so on that complete the experience. These are things that can’t be reproduced on film the way they are in the comic.

If you want to draw a Shakespeare analogy (and, mind you, I’m no huge fan of the Bard, but I’ve read the greatest hits), I would say that all the finery of Watchmen that I’ve just mentioned is analogous to the language of Shakespeare. Whatever can be said about his source material, the language is uniquely his, and that’s what makes his plays as memorable as they are. The bulk of his material obviously has its own merit. Can you really say that about a film genre that’s choked with Daredevils, Ghost Riders, and Cat Women?

I’ve seen a fair number of the current generation of comic book movies, and while some of them are genuinely good (The Dark Knight, Ghost World), I have yet to see one that genuinely does the material better than it’s been done or could be done in comics. Partly, it’s due to the filmmakers not fully understanding what it is that makes the material good (cough cough Wachowskis cough), but a big part of it is the simple fact that comics are not movies. Unfortunately, the more people patronize filmic adaptations of comics, the less incentive comics will have to step out of the hunched-over and decrepit shadow of film.

And just to be absolutely clear, as I’ve said before, what I want is not to have existing comic book movies taken away. I just want them to stop being made.

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I’m not the biggest fan of Shakespeare either, he’s just a readily available example that I know we’d both know of what I’m talking about. (Nothing like being an english major and having to read this guy like he’s the only playwright that ever existed.)

What I’m stressing is the experience of reading a graphic novel and seeing a film are not supposed to be the same, it’s only through comparing them as the same medium do you even get to the issue of thinking one is greater than, or inferior to another. The mediums themselves are tools by which a vision can be shared, and it is entirely valid, all I’m saying, to get at that vision from different ways. Can it be good? Yes. Can it be bad? Yes.

This relationship that people have to comics being an inferior or lower form of entertainment existed long before the last handful of years where comic book movies became popular. This step backwards that movies presents is only possible because of the weak footing comics have always enjoyed. If anything, this is comics chance to be relevant. My father, spurred by the first Spider-man movie, began to talk about his relationship with comics growing up.

It’s here I think where the work needs to be done. It’s easy to stop the movies. Go back ten years, there wasn’t a comicbook movie coming out thrice a year, and how relevant were comics then? The work needs to be done on that level. Where people don’t look at comics as some nostalgic part of their youth, or something designed and created for children. This is an association purely and solely born of the interactions people have had with comics. Hence the parallels drawn with books.

Books have enjoyed a lot longer lead time, so they came in with much firmer positioning, but books association has not been marred or changed by movies.

If from this day forward zero new comicbook movies get made, the books don’t magically get content that jump them into the mainstream. The movies are such a small part of the equation that scoffing at that is I think diverting attention from where the real work needs to be done.

So I concede that movies can have negative impacts, they can also have positive impacts (you’ve cited a few movies that you think did well in their adaptation) and while that has unfortunately not been the overwhelming case (I’d add Ironman, I actually liked the movie version of the character better than the marvel comics iteration) that is indicative of just about anything. The cream rises to the top, and you find in life, there’s never enough cream.

Yes, I ended with cream.

Also, comics have had their woes long prior to this recent cultivation of their plots for movies.

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I’m not talking about getting comics into the mainstream. That’s already happened. I’m talking about advancing comics as an art form, and getting people to recognize it as such. Will Eisner made some terrific progress in the 1970s, and, of course, there was the subsequent British invasion and the advent of creative rights, which was a huge step forward. Then progress basically ground to a halt, and comics is currently in a stage of arrested development.

A big part of the battle is going to be getting the world at large to recognize the true artistic potential of comics, which will both nurture a demand for better content and an influx of talent that is unencumbered by the sci-fi/action tropes that has dogged comics forever*.

(*No, movies did not produce this problem, but they’re currently reinforcing its existence. It won’t go away unless something changes.)

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Oh, I won’t deny it. I am definitely an elitist scumbag.

Also, for the record, I would like to openly claim that I believe Watchmen is a better piece of work than Romeo and Juliet, and that I also believe that Alan Moore is a better author than Will Shakespeare. I’m quite the heretic.

I basically agree with goody’s points, though. He’s explained the general way I feel about the topic, only he’s discussed it in a more pretentious and overtly sexual manner than I could ever dream. Reading his intellectual digressions makes my wiener hard.

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Myself !
(oh wait, that wasn’t the subject now, was it ?)