Comics That Should Be Movies (And Movies That Should've Stayed Comics)

Comics are what could be considered the red-headed-step-child of the art world; so full of potential are they that it seems bewildering to anyone who's ever read a graphic novel that no one sees them as a beautiful medium to convey a narrative but rather a time waster for children and virginal adults.

Graphic novels are a versatile way to tell a story, much more then a simple book or a 80 minute movie ever could be. So why is it that its perfectly acceptable to read a trashy book about effeminate vampires and topless werewolves in public but not for you to read a very wrought and profound Alan Moore? I've got a theory: Because comic book movies suck.

Much like all things (books, plays, politics, wars, biblical events) comics don't really matter until there's a movie. I hate to say it, but its our modern culture. Do you think anyone gave a fuck about a genocide in eastern-central Africa until Hotel Rwanda came out? Now, now, of course people knew about it as it happened and helped, raising awareness at the time. But to really get awareness there has to be an Oscar nomination in there somewhere.

Let me put it this way: did you see people trolling those kooky Scilons in Guy Fawkes masks before the guy who played agent Smith wore one for a few million dollars? Fuck no!

So how do movie adaptions of comics work into their poor and pimply public image? Because comic book movies usually blow. If ninety percent of the movie going audience sees nothing but a Hollywood bastardization of a graphic novel beloved within the community, then that audience sees nothing but a community who'd gladly pay 20 bucks to read a picture book based on a shitty movie. They don't see the wasted potential we do.

Now, don't get me wrong. There's been some decent movies molded on comics, maybe one or two I'd venture to say were good. Alan Moore wrote V for Vendetta, Watchmen and From Hell, which where actually not that bad in their respective animated forms. Certain Frank Miller comics proved decent grounds for a movie too, but these are not the norm. Lets take a closer look.

300, a movie about abdominal muscles, surprisingly did little for me. I wasn't really a fan of the graphic novel for a few reasons, but mainly because I didn't appreciate paying top dollar for a paltry 88 page graphic novella in hard cover that was too unwieldy (thanks to its bizarre dimensions) to fit uniformly on the part of my bookshelf I kept such literature, it kinda pissed me off, actually. I mean the story of 300 itself is actually kinda inspiring, but the movie, a frame for frame adaption of the comic, plus over acting, plus green screen, plus melodramatic music and matrix-esque slow-mo fights pissed me off way worse.

Tank Girl... What can you say, really? As anyone who has read the Tank Girl comics will tell you, making a Tank Girl movie was a really stupid idea. Tank Girl had no plot, no character development, no real antagonists, nothing moving the plot forward save for 80's pop culture references. So to think that anyone could have written a screen-play on these comics is truly laughable.

Wanted. Wanted made me want to shit blood and breathe fire. Made me want to go to Hollywood and smother every smarmy fucking movie exec attached to this horrible fucking mess of a movie. Wanted, written by Mark Millar, is one of the most refreshing takes on the super hero genre in recent years. The comic follows a character who's life is shit: his girlfriend cheats on him, his job is pathetic and he's a hypochondriac, that is, until it is revealed to him that hes the child of a recently deceased multimillionaire comic book super-villain and that he can now do, kill or rape whatever he wants. The movie, however, has no super-villains, no shit monsters, no rape and a morality play completely missing from the original. The great thing about the comic was there was nothing socially redeeming about it, no moral message whatsoever. When these Hollywood fuckwits decided to make the movie they must have thought "Gee, all these gun fights are pretty cool, but lets take out the rape, shit monsters and super villains, put in a tired Good vs Evil motif, and make Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman do arguably the worst acting of their careers! those idiots paying 12 bucks to see it wont even notice."

So, I've given you three prime examples of lame comic-book movie adaptions. Off the top of my head there are dozens more, and every time I think about what has been I cant help but think of what could have been. I look at my book shelf and I see many graphic novels well worth a respectful movie adaption.

Black Hole, by Charles Burns, is a beautiful comic set in 70's Seattle, where a plague has spread across the sexually active teenagers of the area: a plague that alters their physical appearance forever. From the subtle and concealable to the grotesque and disfiguring. Eerily the teens don't try to stop or treat or even spread awareness of the disease. A terrifying and fascinating allegory for growing up, this could be an equally terrifying and fascinating movie.

Transmetropolitan, by Warren Ellis, is one of my favorite comic books and one that I find the most surprising hasn't made into something. Transmetroplitan is what would happen if Hunter S Thompson had kidnapped Stan Lee, traveled into the future and had Stan draw out his drug fueled musings on this brave new world. A profound work of art and words, even if you don't like gonzo journalism.

Preacher, by Garth Ennis, might be too hot a work translate into a movie as is. It deals with a southern baptist preacher with "the Word of God", something that makes every thing he says with a certain inflection a divine command, impossible to ignore or disobey. Oh, it also deals with inbreeding, child molestation, drugs, vampires, religious conspiracies and God being, lets face it, a tool; ignoring all the human suffering he's causing to play hooky doing whatever deities do for fun. If tackled by a team unafraid of stupid Christians certainly boycotting this movie, this could one of the best comic book flicks of the coming decade.

So it is with great trepidation that I look to the future. Maybe this will be a decade in which the movie industry at large will take comics as a medium more seriously, making good comic book movies. Maybe.

300
Tank Girl One
Wanted
Black Hole
Transmetropolitan 'Back on the Street'
Preacher 'Gone to Texas'

(Written under the influence of the Pixies and the Ramones)