Whaddya want for nothin&#39;?

All of 'em?

The thing is, comics are an inherently serial narrative, which is why No One Ever Dies and you have a Cast Of Thousands (or a Rogue's gallery). Movies are inherently a bounded medium, and a tightly bounded one at that -- not just in time, but in attention (you need to expand each character more; cf. people's reactions to Spiderman 3, which included only a most basic team-up but lost most audiences).

So we end up with "the origin story", which is essentially what every superhero movie is about to date, or sequelitis (which eventually audiences get grumbly about). Or a butcher job. (Please prove me wrng here. I feel like I forgot a decent superhero movie that came out recently.)

Now, there are some bounded books -- e.g., Sandman's individual volumes -- that I think *could* be adapted into a movie or perhaps miniseries. But in general my answer to your question is, approximately, all.

Note that adapting situations and characters into a completely different, but familiar, story -- a la X-Men, or FF more recently -- makes more sense, but kills some books. Those two examples have a huge history to cobble from; trying to do that to, say, Watchmen, would be / will be horrific. Watching _Wanted_ was 'fun', in that way where you watch someone speak a foreign language and recognize a word here and there: there I think 4 scenes that paralleled the comic, and the rest was some other story that I'm sure the producer was sitting on and mashed into Wanted, the comic...

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eclecticmagpie.livejournal.com

I think that the books of the 40s/50s/60s/70s -- when the genre had found and settled into the rut XXX formula of origin/original bad guy arc, followed by a series of bad guys each with his own arc, have the best chance of working as movies, and particularly that first origin arc. Sequels are trickier, as the writers tend to build on what has gone before, getting into novel range, as new-man was discussing. But often those origin stories are more like short stories than like novels. I think in the 80s that formula was seen as played out, and we started getting things like Sandman

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The thing is, comics are an inherently serial narrative

Agreed -- but not not an "unbounded" serial narrative. There are plenty of finite comic book series. Wanted, for example, and Watchmen.

So we end up with "the origin story", which is essentially what every superhero movie is about to date

I can think of several counter-examples, just few off them mainstream comics. One of the things I loved about The Incredible Hulk is that the origin was recapped during the credits. If you were going to see The Hulk, you knew the origin already — or enough of it.

The Incredibles and Mystery Men are neither sequels nor origin stories, but you're right -- for the most part superhero movies show the origin.

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peregrinning.livejournal.com

Hm. I think the Incredibles makes a good origin story... for Dash, Violet, the family as a whole, and Syndrome. You're right, though, that it doesn't provide the origin stories of Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, or Frozone.

And isn't Mystery Men the origin story for their group? If memory serves, the team forms as part of the movie.

I think most successful sequels are origin stories - for their villains. Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2, the Joker and [elided] in The Dark Knight. The hero takes a back seat to the story arc of the bad guy. Alas, with movies, the main way to handle this is to kill the bad guy at the end.

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Both Mystery Men and The Incredibles tell the story of a point of transformation for the main characters, but neither gives the origins of the characters or their powers (Dash and Violet were born with theirs, so it's a bit of a cheat).

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brush-rat.livejournal.com

with the exception of the title character, Hellboy and it's sequel mostly skipped past the origins.

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jducoeur

True -- but it should be noted, so did the comics. I mean, we're only getting to Abe's origin now, after how many years?

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cristovau.livejournal.com

This is sometimes considered better than the first, which was Spiderman's origin story. I won't get into that, but I think what worked in the sequel was the origin or _one_ good villain. The origin story doesn't have to be the heroes.

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I think a good, compelling story — and this goes far beyond the superhero genre — shows a major change in at least one of the characters. In the superhero genre, the obvious point of change is the origin -- but there can be other points.

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Ah! Incredibles, Mystery Men -- two excellent examples.

Though perhaps "Incredibles" *is* an origin story -- of the Fightin' Team. Ditto "Mystery Men". This may be why I'm having trouble refuting

siderea's recent comment that superhero fiction is the fiction of identity... it seems to fit, and so many superhero movies are about 'becoming'. Or maybe that's just what movies in general are about.

(Haven't seen Hulk; it's on my short list for the coming weeks. I presume you're talking about the new one.)

As for bounded comics -- you're quite right, of course. But _Wanted_ doesn't work without the weight of the entire DC and Marvel universes behind it, any more than _1602_ would. Things like, say, Squadron Supreme (a miniseries I rather liked when it came out) probably wouldn't work...but perhaps. Again with needing a large universe needed to riff against.

Sandman *can* stand independent of its DC roots, and for that reason I was just thinking yesterday that volume 1 (alone) would be a decent movie, or perhaps 4-part miniseries, with appropriate trimming. It might become simply "An old god descends into Hell to reclaim his power", which is a grievous shortening, but it could work.

Watchmen...well, that's another case. Part of why it works because it's a Faberge egg, with intricate interwoven plots at many levels, and short of having an online movie which is part of a greater online presence (a la I Love Bees, perhaps) I can't see it working in a movie-ish medium. Heck, I could see it being a media event with a "War of the Worlds"-level broadcast for the Big Secret.

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Though perhaps "Incredibles" *is* an origin story -- of the Fightin' Team. Ditto "Mystery Men".

I'm having parallel conversations here. As I said to Peregrinning and Cristovau in seperate comments, both Mystery Men and The Incredibles tell the story of a point of transformation for the main characters, but neither gives the origins of the characters or their powers (Dash and Violet were born with theirs, so it's a bit of a cheat). I think a good, compelling story — and this goes far beyond the superhero genre — shows a major change in at least one of the characters. In the superhero genre, the obvious point of change is the origin -- but there can be other points.

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peregrinning.livejournal.com

New_man, your separation of origin and point of transformation is a good one. I think "point of transformation" is a good way of describing what happens in the Incredibles and Mystery Men: it isn't about how people got their powers, it is about the change when they become a team, or get permission to start using their powers, etc.

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Part of Watchmen's appeal, to me, is the way in which it serves as a example of dozens of narrative tricks that can only be done in the comics medium. It's extremely formalist and daring in that regard. Obviously, this aspect could never translate to another medium. OTOH, my love for this aspect is hardly typical; most potential movie-goers wouldn't even understand what I was talking about.

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...which brings to mind another comic that shouldn't be adapted: Promethea. While you could pull the storyline out, doing any of the tricks that are done in the later books on the Big Screen would be...meaningless.

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"comics are an inherently serial narrative, which is why No One Ever Dies and you have a Cast Of Thousands (or a Rogue's gallery)."

Bzzt! Conflation of medium and genre, 10-point penalty.

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I thought we were talking about genre?

Talking about comics as a medium doesn't make as much sense in the context of moving it to another medium...it wouldn't *be* that medium then, would it?

Maybe I should use the word "milieu". I was never sure what a genre was anyway, and when I went and tried to get other people to define it I discovered they didn't know either.

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"I thought we were talking about genre?"

Well, certainly in the discussion at

jducouer's, the discussion was explicitly about the comics medium, not the superhero genre. I'm not sure if our host intended to continue that aspect or not.

"Talking about comics as a medium doesn't make as much sense in the context of moving it to another medium...it wouldn't *be* that medium then, would it?"

Which is why we call it "adaptation", and why the discussion is interesting at all. Both discussions are about what comics we think would (or would not) work well when adapted to this other medium.

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Hmm. Alright. I can see why both conversations exist. But I was doing the other one.

For me talking about adopting the comics medium (restricted color palettes until recently, frames with some bending of such, transitions, absent control over the tempo and order of reading, 23 page format requiring a climax every month, space for text balloons restricting page layout) for movies (full motion video, overlapping audio possible, 1.25-2 hour length, restricted cast size) wouldn't look like the above.

It'd start with talking about The Matrix as the first movie in my memory to evoke comic art and make major use of (moving) tableau shots; the recent Frank Miller adaptations would then be required topics afterward. I see little evidence of using the visual or layout restrictions of comics being used in FF, or X-Men; these two are notably very Hollywood-esque movies, with all the visual layouts, audio cues, tempo, etc., that that entails. Sin City made much more use of the comic style -- episodic stories in visually distinctive surroundings; stylized characters in scenes suitably framed; extreme effects; even borders, sometimes in fun ways like in the toilet scene.

It'd probably even be an interesting conversation. ;)

If you want to talk about the stories that occur in comics,...I'd call that talking about genre. But genre is restricted by the medium that carries it. (To the extent that I believe in genres at all.) The Rogue's Gallery is a part of the "comics" genre if by comics* you mean the monthly titles. But the rise of Sandman et al. demonstrating the validity of a market for graphic novels seems to have fueled the rise in bounded stories in the past 15ish years. (There may be other causes.) This in turn has led to higher-quality 'specialty' (non-Big Two) comics being mainstream, making more money, driving innovation and story quality, etc. We break away from the Monster of the Week genre and get into actual character development; we end up with Preacher, Y, Fables, etc. But I argue that this is a result of the commercial viability of stories that *fit* that medium, specifically, the ability to make a profit off of a bounded story promoting character transitions. Gaiman's observation at the end of Sandman that good stories have an ending was a direct complaint about the neverending limbo of monthly titles** where (akin to sit-coms) every major transition requires network approval, because it fundamentally changes and may kill a cash cow.

* The old style, monster of the week, is still what I think of when someone says "comics". I guess I think of the other ones as "graphic novels". Perhaps we need better genre terms.

** Yes, I know there are many exceptions to this. They're exceptions. Heck, they might be the rule now; I don't read any monthly titles currently.

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"23 page format requiring a climax every month"

That's not part of the medium, that's part of a specific format that has been used a fair amount in recent years. It's far from a universal constant.

"But genre is restricted by the medium that carries it."

I find this statement puzzling and, in my first reading, clearly false. Unpack, please?

"if by comics* you mean the monthly titles."

Nope. When I mean those, I use specifiers like "monthly" or "serialized". Or, depending what I'm trying to emphasize "Mainstream US comics". (Of course "mainstream" and "US comics" are sort of an oxymoron these days...)

"the neverending limbo of monthly titles** where (akin to sit-coms) every major transition requires network approval, because it fundamentally changes and may kill a cash cow."

They still exist, but their ecological niche is shrinking steadily.

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So I need a better word. Our host's "serialized graphic novel" is very close to what I would use, so perhaps I'll stick with that...

Now, what defines the comic medium? I can point to a bunch of examples, but I'm having trouble generalizing.

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As a (probably over-)simple definition: "Words and Pictures". If you want a more formal one, I refer you to Scott McCloud's _Understanding Comics_ (which, if you haven't read, I *strongly* recommend).

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My assertion was, essentially, "features of the medium of communication constrain aspects of what genres will be successful in that medium". I'm trying it on for size. I still think it's true, but I'm having trouble separating it from other thoughts.

Example: the invention of the close-up moved movies from recordings of staged plays to intimate looks into private moments. Private moments feel very differently on stage than in a movie, and a good author knows how to take advantage of that. This changes what type of story you can tell in a movie, making it more suitable for certain genres of fiction.

By 'medium' here I include many contextual aspects of how the information is presented, including artificial ones like print length (or the half-hour time-slot for TV), return on investment for publishers/distributors, etc. Dr. Horrible exists because iTunes makes it 'free' to distribute, altering constraints on the short-movie medium.

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On the one hand, that's a plausible assertion. On the other, it's the sort of assertion that makes uppity young writers deliberately try and create counterexamples. Since these attempts are sometimes successful, and often result in interesting Art even when they fail, I shall not argue against the point :-)

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Well, I think the "genre" is "Superhero stories" (although there have been other stories presented in comic book format), and the "medium" is "serialized graphic novel".

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brush-rat.livejournal.com

Slip past the people punching people comic and there are a lot of good comics that are complete stories that end and wouldn't benefit from serialization. Clan Apis, Fax from Sarajevo and Why I hate Saturn to name three I can see from where I'm sitting.

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jducoeur

I'll back Alexx on this one: my original post was *intended* to be about the medium of comics as the starting point. Most people took it as being about the genre of superheroes, but that certainly wasn't my plan.

(Neil Gaiman pointed out in his recent lecture that superheroes aren't really a proper genre either, but that's a separate topic. His definition of "genre" is delightful and insightful, but I don't know if I can do it justice.)

On your main point: honestly, I think you're overgeneralizing a bit. While it's true that the best-known comics tend to be the massively serial ones, the *best* comics are typically bounded, especially nowadays. Sometimes those bounds are large (60 issues for Y, 70-some for Sandman and Lucifer, 100 for 100 Bullets), but I've found that the very best stories are usually conceived of as having a clear beginning, middle and end. They may be originally produced in serial form -- but so was Dickens...

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(Funny you should bring up Dickens. See, I write...serials. And I've been studying the tell-tale signs of narrative work that was written before its middle or end were conceived, so as to try to avoid them. And Dickens' work definitely shows some of those. Sometimes it's fine; sometimes, it comes off as sloppy -- as in Great Expectations, when events essentially repeat in the middle. Now when I read a novel, I can hear fairly clearly when the author had a direct line of authorial intent beforehand -- or when they just followed a "and then this happened" style, with or without an overall gameplan.)

But that's actually a different issue: as the Futurama episode When Aliens Attack skewered adroitly, when there is an expectation of infinite future issues (even if that never can actually happen), then you get sit-com limbo, with character development severely constrained.

I agree that most of the best stories are bounded; in fact, it was my point: that well-bounded stories are best suited for adaptation.

But I was using a much more restricted definition of comics than, evidently, everyone, causing mass confusion. To me comics are still the monthlies without end with characters that never stay dead, and arcs that at best survive one editor/writer team. This made the rest of my categorization moot. :-/

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