5 Comic Books You’re Waiting, Wanting, Begging, Longing to See on TV
Comic books (or graphic novels to those who care) have had plenty of big-screen opportunities, especially in the superhero genre. But many of today’s cutting-edge, literary-minded comics would make even better television. Just as comics have grown more serious and respected in the last few years, so has television – no longer just the bastard child of film, television is now an art in itself, and like comics its writers tell long-form stories that explore characters with depth and complexity. Here are five comic book series that would never fit into the standard two-hour feature film treatment, but would make killer TV.
5: Sandman
Neil Gaiman’s seminal 10-volume series seems to defy adaptation. It tells the story of ten god-like creatures who represent the passions that push and pull all conscious life; the main character is the personification of dreams, Morpheus, a tortured wanderer growing weary of his immortality. Surrounding him is an epically sprawling cast of human, animal, and mythical creatures from the past and present.
Accompanying Gaiman’s storyweaving is a phalanx of artists: instead of maintaining a uniform artistic vision throughout the series, Sandman featured a succession of guest artists who illustrated each storyline in their own distinct styles.While many fans of Sandman will likely claim that it’s Gaiman’s inventive storytelling and larger-than-life characters that make this television-worthy material, I’d hold that it’s actually the art that sets it apart from all the other epic fantasy that has been hitting screens lately. Because Sandman is as much about the look as it is about the story, it would be a great opportunity to experiment in a new form of television art: instead of having a team of revolving directors step in to direct episodes in a single style, let a series of directors take each storyline and tell it in their own way. The actors could unify the series, but the visuals would feature the same kaleidescope that made the original comic so unique.
4: Meridian
On Demetria, islands of land float in the air above a planet of uninhabitable toxic oceans. City-states built on these islands engage in a medieval push-and-tug of wars and negotiations based on trade and transportation. In a delightfully steampunk flourish, the main mode of transportation between the island city-states are flying galleons which harness the wind in sails for propulsion and steering, while anti-gravity engines keep them afloat in the air.
Meridian‘s publisher went out of business before the story could reach a satisfying conclusion. However, it lasted long enough to prove its potential as a fantasy that could appeal to both young adults and grown-ups, with a light touch. It also had the potential to evolve over several seasons, with a plot that offered many opportunities for development and a solid core cast of characters. The main character, Sephie, is a strong, intelligent female character who avoids both fantasy stereotypes of ditzy damsel and sexy Amazon. Before the series’ cut off, the story already had several promising twists, including mistaken reports of a death, love triangles, and palace intrigue. And any fan of the original, truncated series wouldn’t mind seeing it finally brought to a conclusion on screen.
Why not It’s Walky?
Girl Genius. ’nuff said.
Plus 1 for Girl Genius
Add Probability Broach and you got something.
I would second that except that Hollywood would probably ruin it. The Foglios have managed to put so many twists and turns in the plot that it would be difficult to shorten down to 120 minutes. Not to mention Hollywood would “tart it up” so much that part of their audience wouldn’t be able to go see it. Not that Phil Foglio would mind; he’s written that kind of junk before. But Girl Genius is great because it might be bawdy but it’s not trashy, so your 14 year old can read it without becoming corrupted.
It’s a great steampunky gaslight yarn, though, and I recommend it.
That would be true if it was a /movie/ adaption. However! a tv series adaption?? I think it could do amazingly well.
“Six seasons and a movie!”
I do believe I would die of raw nerdgasm if both Sandman and Fables were adapted for television.
I would absolutely not survive if they added The Books of Magic to that.
Fables, Sandman, and the Books of Magic would all make great series. So would Promethea.
Why would I want to watch a dumbed-down version of a great comic, like “Sandman”? I appreciate your idea about bringing in different directors but, based on what I’ve seen of other comic book movies, I believe the chances of success are dim.
I’m reading a site favoured by far right thumper types who think people who would go to a con are idiotic losers, and yet… steampunk? There’s hope for this place yet. Anti-grav galleons indeed (see the latest 3 musketeers…)
Fanboyism is a bipartisan issue…
One word on Conservative fanboyism:
Firefly
Sluggy Freelance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sluggy_Freelance
Schlock Mercenary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlock_Mercenary
They’d have my eyeballs every week.
As long as they weren’t up against Justified or Burn Notice.
I like Gaiman though when Gaiman teams up with Terry Pritchard the stories are more fluid, interesting. JMO.
What I always believed should be rehashed is, ‘The Crow’.
A t.v. series was attempted in the late 90′s but was NOTHING close in resemblance to the comic. Nor was the popular 1994 movie though the-late Brandon Lee was entertaining and the movie provided 1 of the best movie soundtracks of the 90′s helped a great deal.
Another is Clive Barker’s still unfinished after ~20 years, ‘Abarat’. While I enjoy the first Abarat book it leaves a sequel waiting in the wings. Though Barker has proven to be far too consumed in making wads of cash with blockbuster crap rather than completing this story. A shame really.
Thank you pointing out how important art is to comics. Although it would seem obvious because of their very nature, the specific nature of Joe Kubert’s comic panel succession, Jack Kirby’s dynamic movement and Steve Ditko’s eccentric lights and darks and overall style are too often ignored by outsiders when in fact they cannot be separated from the success of a comic.
It is understood that film is another medium entirely yet Kirby and Steranko and McFarlane have found their way into Japanese Animei and this in turn found its way into films like “The Matrix” as well as Chinese martial arts films of the last 15 years. “Robocob” was perhaps the first time in film history special effects allowed for the wall-slamming nature of Jack Kirby’s art.
50 years later, it is hard to convey the reason why Stan Lee was so influential as his type of “new” storyline of soap opera and extended stories is now par for the course in American writing. Some fans become enamored of story and others of the artists, sometimes to the extent a comic becomes far less interesting without one or other specific name.
Among fans Ditko leaving Spider-Man to Romita and Kirby the Fantastic Four is regarded as tragedy. Others enjoy long runs of an artist attached to a series and hope for the best. Perhaps the biggest success in recent years when it comes to honoring both artist and writer is the invocation of Lee and Ditko in the Spider-Man films. In the Fantastic Four films both Lee and Kirby seem to have been mostly ignored.
I would nominate the Dark Horse comic DMZ(New York) if only for a glimpse at what 4 more years of Obama will bring to the country
Fables is far and away the most original thing to happen to comics in years…I graduated from Superman and JLA and Thor to Fables, and while I still love capes and titanic punches in space, Fables is the only book I read regularly.
I think Sandman should pretty much be handed off to the creative team from Carnivale…
But Fables…oh my…amazing!
For those who might be thinking about Fables, a caution: it is very rocky at the start. I almost didn’t keep going. The plot and its twist were obvious, the dialogue was stilted, and the characters’ voices weren’t distinct at all. But Willingham quickly and constantly improved.
Robert Howard was the fastest maturing writer (read his published works in chronological order and feel your jaw drop) but Mr. Willingham was pretty close.
Here is one of the fundamental things that is wrong with our culture.
People are no longer expected to become adults. They simply grow older while remaining childish.
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
…and get off my lawn!
Here is one of the fundamental things wrong with your view of what comprises being an adult. Comics HAVE been marketed to children in their history but this has obviously changed with the passing of years. There is nothing inherently childish with using comic panels to tell a story.
The Tarzan newspaper comic strip artist Burne Hogarth had his panels exhibited at the Louvre in the ’60s and at the same time Joe Kubert was experimenting with using panels to display movement across those panels in Sgt. Rock comics. At the same time Robert Frank’s documentary photography book “The Americans” was enjoying popularity and employed juxtaposing images one to the other to make a narrative whole.
One of the most mature epiphanies one can have at any age is the maxim that good stuff is where you find it and not where you expect it to be. Positing that the only “adult” take on artistry is to be found in Jane Austin or Charlotte Bronte, “Terms of Endearment” or “The English Patient,” or orchestral music or opera, is the most childish and least adult take on perception of all. I found the ending of “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” to be genuinely moving and the use of voice by the actor who played the “evil” protagonist to be innovative in the extreme – how is that use of voice less than in a Shakespeare play? To evoke that out of a crazy mish-mash of non-traditional fantasy and SF takes talent.
“There is nothing inherently childish with using comic panels to tell a story.”
I would say there is nothing inherently childish with using IMAGE panels to tell a story.
That we call a particular style “comic” is completely irrelevant, other than noting the style was originally used for humorous purposes. Of course even that pales when we compare it to some of the styles used in the past. From Egyptian tomb drawings to stained glass windows to tapestries, more than a few of the styles used on those could be called “comic”, or at least “juvenile”, compared to various traditional styles of art, or even just the state of animation today.
“To evoke that out of a crazy mish-mash of non-traditional fantasy and SF takes talent.”
I found the faerie myth elements and themes of Hellboy II to be almost perfectly classical, despite the cyberpunkish overlay they were given.
They are quite similar to what Neil Gaiman did with Sandman, as well as many of his other works.
Further, I would say such elements and themes have been sadly missing from too much of our entertainment in the past decades, and we could use a lot more of it.
As for the performance of Luke Goss as Prince Nuada, he was absolutely fantastic. As you say, he conveyed so much by use of his voice, particularly for a character otherwise defined purely by the athletics of his fight scenes. Poor choice of tone in any of his scenes would have turned the character into farce of an adversary, and ruined the entire film.
What, no Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman or Flaming Carrot?
Definitely second “Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman”. And why not Tony Millionaire’s “Maakies”? Both of these have the whimsical qualities of “Hark! a Vagrant”, but with additional surrealism and straight-out [i]gnarr[/i]…… another quality that is lacking in current television…..
Maakies was adapted as “Drinky Crow” and was very faithful to the original. So it’s already been done.
Thank you Mark “Captain Killjoy” V. Did it occur to you that the reason these were picked was because they could have literary or artistic value?
Stuff your sniffing ghettoization.
Having grown up with the business manager of Marvel Comics (at the beginning of the Stan Lee era) as a neighbor, I’ve been immersed in comic art for decades. Not all the writing is great and the political ethos of some authors is truly appalling.
But 100 Bullets would be a great TV series because it would have an underlying plot but allow each episode to be a complete story to further the narrative. It offers the opportunity to keep production costs down while offering (if done correctly) hard nosed crime/noir scenarios.
And it doesn’t HAVE to be political commentary, just good ol’ fashioned murder and mayhem.
I think “100 Bullets” on TV would be great great fun, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t be too popular…it would cause too many people to consider too many demons…
Sandman. On telly. Sheesh. That’d be a grabber. Almost as exciting as a test pattern.
Beware the march of ideas.
Actually, grant morrison’s “animal man” could be good, if done by whoever did the original Prisoner.
Needs more “Transmetropolitan.”
And “Milk and Cheese.” Haha.
Whatever happened to Little LuLu????