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Post by MRPs_Missives on Mar 11, 2024 18:22:46 GMT -5
Red Dwarf. Other than inside The Red Dwarf Smegazine, the characters have never been adapted to comics. In fact, a few bobbleheads here and there, some t-shirts, a model of the ship, and four books written by their creators, and that's about it for merchandise (not including commercial releases of the show). You'd think there'd be licensed toys, video games, spin-off novels, but 36 years after it debuted, but no. Solar Pons. A Sherlock Holmes pastiche so faithful to Doyle's characters, ideas, and style that I can't honestly say that I'm surprised that he hasn't broken into other mediums than the short stories his creator penned for him and the longer tales Basil Cooper followed up with, but it's still disappointing that no one's adapted the sleuth for television, radio, or comics. I suppose that such an obvious Holmes take-off needs to stay under the radar so as to not get the attention of the Doyle estate, but so many great stories out there which would work so well if adapted for comics. The Beatles. No, they're not fictional and yes, they've popped up in one shots and other people's titles here and there, but a Yellow Submarine comic set in Pepperland would certainly have an audience even these days and a 1960's Dell comic featuring the guys they played Help! is the sort of comic you scour back issue boxes for in your dreams. There was recently an OGN based on Yellow Submarine...  and a Yellow Submarine comic from Gold Key back in '68...  -M |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Mar 11, 2024 18:24:55 GMT -5
There's also been biocomics on the Beatles including this one...  which garnered some critical acclaim and industry awards. -M |
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Post by berkley on Mar 11, 2024 19:25:25 GMT -5
I think a lot of the ones mentioned so far would be hard to pull off - at least to my individual taste. So much of Wodehouse's charm is in the language, the narrative voice - the same goes for Chandler, for that matter. Much of that would be lost in a translation to a more visual medium. Then there's the matter of getting the characters to look right - every reader will have their own ideas, naturally, but I find movie adaptations often don't even bother to try. Comics should be better able to come up with a version that bears some resemblance to the writer's description but even with the best intentions the artist might not meet the reader's personal image of how the character should look (I don't like how cover artist Ionicus does Jeeves for the Penguin paperbacks, for example). So I don't feel much desire to see adaptations of favourite characters from one medium to another: the odds are always against the new version capturing whatever made me a fan of the original. But there'll always be some curiosity whenever something along these lines is done and I'll usually give them a look anyway - so I'll be trying to see Dune part 2 in the next week or so, even though I had ambivalent feelings towards part 1. Comic adaptations of movies are often at the whim of whether likeness rights to the actors come with the rights to the adaptation, and that is not always the case. If there are no likeness rights, the artists cannot make the characters look like the actors. The same is true of toys based on film & TV properties, if likeness rights don't come with the property license, the toys cannot resemble the actors. The costumes/clothes can be accurate, but not the faces. In modern merchandising, actors usually agree to likeness rights as part of their contract for the film/show, but this was not always the case. For example, the Lon Chaney estate is particularly difficult to work with to get likeness rights to Chaney in any new merch based on his classic films. So sometimes it is not the artists fault the characters from movie and TV in comic adaptations do not look like their onscreen counterparts, their hands were tied preventing that from happening, but most of that happens behind the curtain and in the pre-internet age the fans would never know. -M I was thinking more of literary characters but I do remember hearing about this somewhere, probably here at the Classics. I haven't read all that many comics adaptations of movies or tv so I haven't come across the problem myself.
About comics adaptations in general, obviously their artistic success will depend largely on the creators. We've seen suggestions of which characters people would like to see adapted, but I'd like to hear who would they like to do the adapting? Who would be their ideal writer or artist for the particular character(s) in question?
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Post by johnnygobs on Mar 12, 2024 22:57:50 GMT -5
I’m a little surprised we’ve never seen The Fifth Element comics.
They could make some pretty European-style graphic novels if they were so inclined.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2024 23:54:00 GMT -5
We've seen suggestions of which characters people would like to see adapted, but I'd like to hear who would they like to do the adapting? Who would be their ideal writer or artist for the particular character(s) in question? For Jeeves and Wooster, the first thing that popped in my head for art was Guy Davis ala his stylized approach on Sandman Mystery Theatre. Completely different genre of course, but I feel like it could still capture the feel of the period. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 14, 2024 11:05:30 GMT -5
I’m a little surprised we’ve never seen The Fifth Element comics. They could make some pretty European-style graphic novels if they were so inclined. Wellllll............... It pretty much originated in French bande dessinee. Writer/director Luc Besson wrote the original story that he adapted, when he was 14, based on a lot of the work available, at the time, which included Moebius and Jean-Claude Mezieres, artist and co-creator of Valerian & Laureline.. When he went into production, he hired both of them to be conceptual designers. he then halted pre-production to go do The Professional (or Leon, The Professional, if you prefer), in Hollywood. Mezieres and Pierre Christin (the writer on Valerian) decided to do a new Valerian album, which featured a taxi driver and a floating cab (and other cars). Originally, the hero was supposed to be a worker in a robot factory. When Besson saw the new album and the image of the floating taxi, he decided to change the hero into a taxi driver. As it was, Moebius had also used floating cars in the work The Long Tomorrow, written by Alien creator Dan O'Bannon, which was a noir detective story, in a future setting , in 1975. That was an influence on Ridley Scott and Blade Runner and Moebius did some work on it, too. A lot of the film was cribbed from various French sci-fi bande dessinee, including Moebius and Alejandro Jodorowsky's Incal epic, as well as Mezieres' Valerian (including the cruise ship) and some others, from Metal Hurlant and other magazines (there are some Druillet elements, though not as strong as Moebius and Mezieres). The tone is straight out of Valerian, which was why it was no surprise when Besson directed the Valerian film (though I found it pretty dull, compared to the albums). Besson also directed the adaptation Tardi's Adele Blanc-Sec. I always laughed, on the old IMDB message boards, when people would try to claim that The Fifth Element was a rip-off of the Heavy Metal film sequence, "Harry Canyon." Both films were ripping off the same source: Moebius. Moebius refused permission to use his stories in the film, so the producers just ripped them off. The Long Tomorrow was turned into "Harry Canyon," while Arzach was disguised as "Tarna." The thing was, 99% of the commenters who perpetuated that had never read the Heavy Metal magazine and had no clue about the European stories it translated, or anything about the history of the Heavy Metal movie. I owned the making of book, by Carl Macek (of Robotech fame), which detailed the development and the problem of using anything from Moebius, who was the most popular artist in the original years of the magazine (and one of the founders of the original Metal Hurlant). One of the designers on that film was Juan Giminez, who worked with Pierre Christin and Alejandro Jodorowsky (on the Metabarons, derived from The Incal), whose style is very similar to Moebius. He did a lot of work on Harry Canyon, since he was similar to Moebius and had done this kind of work. Given Besson's love of comics, I'm kind of surprised he never did anything with Nikita or Leon, in comics, either Leon's adventures before meeting Matilda or Nikita's adventures after the end of the film, on the run from the French secret service. His film Le Dernier Combat (The Last Battle) is very much in the vein of sci-fi comics of Metal Hurlant and similar outlets. His film Subway would also make for an interesting album or even whole series. Besson is a visual stylist, which makes the connection to comics obvious; just surprising that he hasn't exploited it in the other direction. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 14, 2024 11:13:09 GMT -5
Another that I am surprised we haven't seen more of is Kim Newman. His Anno Dracula got a comic tie-in, from Titan; but, his Diogenes Club stories are perfect for a comic book series, not to mention the Drearcliff Grange stories or his in-world fictional character, Dr Shade...or his Derek Leech character.....or The Angels of Musick......or his Moriarty and Col Sebastian Moran consulting criminal stories (mirror pastiches of Sherlock Holmes, using his enemies)...or...you get the idea. He is an old friend of Neil Gaiman, which makes it all the more surprising, as he references comics, as well as movies, tv and literature (high and low) in his works. Would have been perfect for Vertigo.
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Post by berkley on Mar 14, 2024 17:01:10 GMT -5
We've seen suggestions of which characters people would like to see adapted, but I'd like to hear who would they like to do the adapting? Who would be their ideal writer or artist for the particular character(s) in question? For Jeeves and Wooster, the first thing that popped in my head for art was Guy Davis ala his stylized approach on Sandman Mystery Theatre. Completely different genre of course, but I feel like it could still capture the feel of the period.
I had to do an image search to see how his artwork looked but from what I saw I would agree.He seems to have a good ability to do facial expressions and different styles of clothing, etc.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 17, 2024 20:22:26 GMT -5
Gardner Fox's Kothar the barbarian had an adventure adapted in Marvel's Conan the barbarian, but that's it. During the '70s, I'm sure the rights to the character would have been pretty cheap... and could have spared us a lot of Conan wannabes who were far less interesting, had DC or Atlas been willing to pay just a little more.
Kothar and Red Lori were cool, as was the sword Frostfire. A sword that came with a curse: it protected its bearer from spells, but prevented him or her from having any other riches. Fox's creation was much better than Brak or Thongor, IMHO.
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Post by berkley on Mar 17, 2024 22:35:42 GMT -5
Gardner Fox's Kothar the barbarian had an adventure adapted in Marvel's Conan the barbarian, but that's it. During the '70s, I'm sure the rights to the character would have been pretty cheap... and could have spared us a lot of Conan wannabes who were far less interesting, had DC or Atlas been willing to pay just a little more. Kothar and Red Lori were cool, as was the sword Frostfire. A sword that came with a curse: it protected its bearer from spells, but prevented him or her from having any other riches. Fox's creation was much better than Brak or Thongor, IMHO.
It's been so long since I read any of these characters that I can't remember my own reactions too well, apart from finding them all more or less OK. What abut all those ERB-inspired series Lin Carter used t do? I seem to recall finding thoe a little disappointing , though not so terrible that I didn't keep trying them for quite a while.
Wasn't there talk at one time about an adaptation of Zelazny's Amber series with art by Howard Chaykin? I can't find anything about it online so maybe I'm misremembering, or mixing it up with some of the other SF adaptations Chaykin did around that time - late 70s to early 80s. I think the painting style Chaykin was using on those books might have worked well with that fictional world.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Mar 17, 2024 23:44:57 GMT -5
Gardner Fox's Kothar the barbarian had an adventure adapted in Marvel's Conan the barbarian, but that's it. During the '70s, I'm sure the rights to the character would have been pretty cheap... and could have spared us a lot of Conan wannabes who were far less interesting, had DC or Atlas been willing to pay just a little more. Kothar and Red Lori were cool, as was the sword Frostfire. A sword that came with a curse: it protected its bearer from spells, but prevented him or her from having any other riches. Fox's creation was much better than Brak or Thongor, IMHO. It's been so long since I read any of these characters that I can't remember my own reactions too well, apart from finding them all more or less OK. What abut all those ERB-inspired series Lin Carter used t do? I seem to recall finding thoe a little disappointing , though not so terrible that I didn't keep trying them for quite a while.
Wasn't there talk at one time about an adaptation of Zelazny's Amber series with art by Howard Chaykin? I can't find anything about it online so maybe I'm misremembering, or mixing it up with some of the other SF adaptations Chaykin did around that time - late 70s to early 80s. I think the painting style Chaykin was using on those books might have worked well with that fictional world.
There were two 3-issue Zelazny Amber adaptations done by DC in the 90s-Nine Princes of Amber and Gun of Avalon. Chaykin did not work on either. I have the first and part of the second, but they are not that good.   -M |
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 18, 2024 21:49:02 GMT -5
There was also The Illustrated Roger Zelazny, with art from Gray Morrow, which was published by Byron Preiss, who also published Samuel R Delany and Howard Chaykin's Empire. Chaykin did The Swords of Heaven and The Flowers of Hell, with Michael Moorcock, for Heavy Metal, and The Stars My Destination, for Baronet and finished it with Marvel's Epic imprint.
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Post by berkley on Mar 19, 2024 1:20:08 GMT -5
There was also The Illustrated Roger Zelazny, with art from Gray Morrow, which was published by Byron Preiss, who also published Samuel R Delany and Howard Chaykin's Empire. Chaykin did The Swords of Heaven and The Flowers of Hell, with Michael Moorcock, for Heavy Metal, and The Stars My Destination, for Baronet and finished it with Marvel's Epic imprint.
Yes, it's the style Chaykin used for the artwork on those books that I thought could be a good fit for Amber, though it's been quite a long while since I've looked at them so I can't say for sure that I'd feel the same way now.The Bester adaptation was the one I was most familiar with, having read most of the serialised installments. The other two seemed to be done in a similar style from the samples I remember but I've never actually read them.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 19, 2024 10:20:55 GMT -5
There was also The Illustrated Roger Zelazny, with art from Gray Morrow, which was published by Byron Preiss, who also published Samuel R Delany and Howard Chaykin's Empire. Chaykin did The Swords of Heaven and The Flowers of Hell, with Michael Moorcock, for Heavy Metal, and The Stars My Destination, for Baronet and finished it with Marvel's Epic imprint.
Yes, it's the style Chaykin used for the artwork on those books that I thought could be a good fit for Amber, though it's been quite a long while since I've looked at them so I can't say for sure that I'd feel the same way now.The Bester adaptation was the one I was most familiar with, having read most of the serialised installments. The other two seemed to be done in a similar style from the samples I remember but I've never actually read them.
They all had Chaykin's Robert Peake-influenced painting style. They are both good; The Moorcock one is right in line with his other Eternal Champion stories and Empire is swashbuckling space opera, along similar lines as Chaykin's own Cody Starbuck. |
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Post by berkley on Mar 19, 2024 12:26:29 GMT -5
Yes, it's the style Chaykin used for the artwork on those books that I thought could be a good fit for Amber, though it's been quite a long while since I've looked at them so I can't say for sure that I'd feel the same way now.The Bester adaptation was the one I was most familiar with, having read most of the serialised installments. The other two seemed to be done in a similar style from the samples I remember but I've never actually read them.
They all had Chaykin's Robert Peake-influenced painting style. They are both good; The Moorcock one is right in line with his other Eternal Champion stories and Empire is swashbuckling space opera, along similar lines as Chaykin's own Cody Starbuck.
I think I have copies of one or both of them, maybe it's time I dug them out and read them.
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