Watchmen cast...

[bryanstone]

So they've cast the watchmen movie:

www.aintitcool.com/node/33449

I've still not read Watchmen and I couldn't care less about the movie but I thought it offered an opportunity to bring up comics movies.

Honestly the only good i think they do is, in cases like Harvey Pekar's, give the creators a good chunk of change. Otherwise I really don't believe that they're helping sell comics.

I recently read some commentary on the comics world...I think it was by way of the beat blog....wish I could remember where it was...but the guy was saying that after going to see one of the Spiderman movies he took his son to a comics shop which he immediately regretted and compared, in atmosphere, to a porn shop.

Plus most of these movies aren't even nearly as good as the comics!

anyway, what do yall think?

[penina]

Oh god, Watchmen should not be a movie. I just don't see any way that this could possibly be good.

[bak]

I can proudly say that I've never read the Watchmen (and all future efforts to convince me to do otherwise will prove as equally futile as all previous ones) but sometimes I get into superhero movie adaptations. I liked Batman Returns, all the Spiderman movies and X-Men movies but I've never read most superhero comics, so I was approaching the filmed stories from a different perspective. Most comic book movie adaptations are horrible, though I like the comic book and the film version of Ghost World; both comic and movie of Sin City were idiotic, though, forever cementing Frank Miller in my mind as the American pop-culture equivalent of a wanna-be Robin to Jim Thompson's Batman.

The comic that most needs to be turned into a movie? Jason Shiga's Bookhunter. That would be pretty special.

[morgan]

Bak, any particular reasons you don't want to read Watchman? Just not an Alan Moore fan? while I shan't try and convince you to read it, I'll just say that it was one of those comics that made me want to make comics myself. It and Maus, Sandman/Death and Kingdom Come were what I first cut my teeth on.

[bak]

I tend to agree with CC Beck's take on superhero books in the Comics Journal interview a few years ago. Meanwhile, I like Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy. I like Milt Gross' Nize Baby. I like Grosz and Masereel and Nuckel and Feininger and Herriman and Schulz and Johnny Craig and Feldstein and Kurtzman and most of those EC guys. I like Kirby and Eisner and Russ Manning. I dunno. I don't read superhero books, no matter how "mature" or "intelligent" they are. It's like handing me a nickel and trying to convince me that someday it's going to grow up to be a dollar. I'm just not that stupid. But I can understand how they would appeal to adults trapped in the frozen carbonite of arrested adolescence.

[swardlicker]

Like me.

[bryanstone]

ya, me too.

it's funny you use a star wars reference to prove a point about adults who need to grow up.

meanwhile you're calling 3/4 of the people in this community 'that stupid'?

dude.....

[bak]

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070726/ap_on_hi_te/internet_feud

I wrote "the frozen carbonite of arrested adolescence" because it was funny. You know what would really be funny, though? If exactly 3/4 of the people in this community really were 'that stupid'!

[bryanstone]

"When he finally arrived, Tavares burned the guy's trailer down."

Yeesh! I don't wanna burn your trailer Bak, I promise.

[bryanstone]

speaking of comics movies looks like they're making both Avengers and JLA movies:

www.aintitcool.com/node/33472

[srbissette]

Comics movies? You have no idea -- I mean, what was the most successful movie series ever based on a comics (in any medium/genre/format -- choose your terminology)? BLONDIE! There were, like 35+ BLONDIE movies in the '40s!

I've got a soft spot in my skull for the European comics flicks, from Bava's DIABOLIK to the more erotic ones like BABA YAGA. Now, those are comics movies, stylishly done and full of movement, skin and eye-candy.

Nobody pays attention to all the movies being made BY cartoonist, like the amateur 8mm flicks Richard Corben used to make (he and Bruce Jones collaborated on a feature, DARK PLANET, that is damned near unwatchable) or direct-to-vid productions by Kevin Van Hook (FROST) and Mike Allred. I've got a bunch of Mike's 1990s movies I picked up during my visits to Portland/Seattle in the mid-'90s, and they're fun (but dumb), and Mike's IN most of them, too.

[morgan]

bak said:

I tend to agree with CC Beck's take on superhero books in the Comics Journal interview a few years ago. Meanwhile, I like Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy. I like Milt Gross' Nize Baby. I like Grosz and Masereel and Nuckel and Feininger and Herriman and Schulz and Johnny Craig and Feldstein and Kurtzman and most of those EC guys. I like Kirby and Eisner and Russ Manning. I dunno. I don't read superhero books, no matter how "mature" or "intelligent" they are. It's like handing me a nickel and trying to convince me that someday it's going to grow up to be a dollar. I'm just not that stupid. But I can understand how they would appeal to adults trapped in the frozen carbonite of arrested adolescence.

Firstly, a nickel CAN grow up to be a dollar; invest it

Which actually makes for a good analogy for mature superhero comics. A nickel is nothing but a chunk of metal that serves as a marker for a predetermined value. It is only worth as much or as little as the value we place on it. Similarly, a genre is only as deep as we are willing to delve into it. I find it hard to believe that the superhero genre is incapable of being written for the intelligent if there are intelligent people out there who are interested in writing for it and reading it. Let's not forget how far the science fiction genre has come. The greats of Asimov and Bradbury were writing masterpieces in the same pulps that featured stories about busty blonds being eaten by space apes. But the interest in taking the genre farther was there.

Again, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with not liking superhero comics. Just that it's a bit premature to write them off as fare for the emotionally and mentally arrested.

-Morganman

[srbissette]

I used to harbor the same prejudice Bak articulates here -- I recall Jean Giraud (aka Moebius) saying, "Superheroes are -- beautiful!"

It's all wine bottles, and they're only as good or bad as the wine poured into them. Superheroes are the contemporary embodiment of the ideals, fears, archetypes and beliefs that fueled the myths and folklore and religions of the ages -- just new wine bottles for old wine. Some vintages are prime, some suck.

For me, it was Jack Kirby's NEW GODS that re-opened my eyes to the great power and potential of the genre; in its prime, the Fourth World quartet of comics (NEW GODS, JIMMY OLSEN, THE FOREVER PEOPLE and MR. MIRACLE) were gold. A few single-issue tales, primary among them "The Pact" and "Glory Boat," are still among the most amazing comics I've ever read in my life, bar none.

It's also important to recognize that superheroes per se are often not of a genre as such. For instance, Frank Miller's DAREDEVIL owes its lineage to Hammett, Spillane, Ian Fleming, Kurosawa's YOJIMBO and Leone's "Man With No Name" westerns -- there's a clear thread from KISS ME DEADLY (the novel and the film -- two very different creations and entities) to Frank's most effective DAREDEVIL narratives, which dissect the nature of vigilantism as vividly and intensely as the best works in any other medium/form/genre you can cite. WATCHMEN is closer in many ways to Roger Zelazny's LORD OF LIGHT (a classic sf novel of the '70s, sadly neglected today), and Moore and Gibbons were very consciously channeling Thomas Pynchon (particularly 'V') and Harvey Kurtzman while exploring the unexpected avenues WATCHMEN presented to them.

WATCHMEN is a primo graphic novel, as much dystopian sf as a superhero book -- and worth the read, Bak. No shit. You gotta audit my comics history class this fall, amigo -- a CCS perk prior fellows ignored!

[bak]

Morgan, it's not premature, I've been writing them off since the early 1990s. Meanwhile, it's not about intelligent writing or even an intelligent audience. It's about the bottom line, and how much the publisher is willing to pay (or blackmail) some "credible" reviewer into throwing dupe words like "mature", "post-modern", "deconstruction" etc etc into his "thoughtful" review of the latest "Dark Spandex" Graphic Novel. It's also about brand loyalty and keeping adults who've been hooked on superhero books all their lives feel better about themselves, because they can feel "smart" for reading them.
(edited here after reading Steve's post)
Steve, I am really looking forward to your comics history class. And like I said, I like Kirby but Frank Miller's work is difficult for me to digest.

[srbissette]

Well, it's also about defending decisions (yours made in the early '90s) and continuing to once they've become prejudices (you sound like my buddy Rick Veitch attacking horror movies -- which is fine, his call -- but then trying to attack them for content, which is ridiculous since he doesn't know jack about 'em!). You can articulate your decision, Bak, and defend that, but you can't attack with any intelligence something you've decided beforehand not to read -- as all you have to talk about is your decision NOT to read it.

Some folks just don't "like" westerns, and so don't read/see 'em. Fine. But don't then try to tell me there's nothing of merit in the work of creators like Charlier & Jean Giraud, Anthony Mann, Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, etc. who found and breathed life into their respective westerns. Some folks (like my buddy Rick) despise horror movies, rejecting their preconceptions of what they are -- fine, but don't then try to attack the work of George Romero, David Cronenberg, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, Ramsey Campbell, etc., or blanket attack 'torture porn' as if you've an informed point of view. You've chosen NOT to indulge -- fine, leave it at that. Go further, and you expose your lack of knowledge of anything beyond your decision.

As ever, it's the call of the individual -- and your right to make that decision, natch! -- but don't go caricaturing a work you've decided NOT to know anything about, you only undermine your own credibility.

In every genre, there are works of integrity and honesty -- and WATCHMEN is one of those. The critical reaction (which is what you attack in your most recent post) is beside the point: Alan and Dave were doing something of merit long before it was out there, much less praised; I know, I saw some of the work underway and pages before they were delivered. WATCHMEN was WATCHMEN before it was revered, elevated, lionized: it was a work of great skill, integrity and merit, and remains so today. It is as much dystopian sf as superhero comic, and more. It's not perfect, but it's pretty extraordinary, and it indeed stretched the comics medium/form in fresh directions.

It's not about publishers or "credible" reviewers, it's about the work, man. It's always about the work itself -- the rest is window dressing, at best.