This week on the Major Spoilers Podcast, the Major Spoilers Crew welcomes Dr. Peter Coogan, Director of the Institute for Comic Studies to talk about adaptations in all their forms. From Watchmen to Classics Illustrated and even adaptations from film to comics, what works and what doesn’t, is up for grabs during the show.
As always, the Major Spoilers Podcast is nothing without comments from great readers and listeners like you. You can use the comment section below, drop us a voice mail by calling (785) 727-1939, or record your comments and send it as an MP3 file in an email to podcast@majorspoilers.com.
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7 Comments
hopefully you guys will talk but Marvel Illustrated i think what there doing is great although the art can be boring i assume you will also be touching on all the shows to comics what shows would you guys like to see converted
You guys gotta talk about Howard the Duck. I mean, he was the first Marvel character to be translated to a feature- length film (as far as I know, I’ve been known to be wrong).
I’m curious as to what translates better for superheroes. Live action or animation?
I’d really like to know if there’s a reason why the mainstream movie industry seems uncapable to produce a sucessful movie centered on a female comicbook character. Catwoman, for example, stank so hard I felt like giving my DvD player a baking soda scrub! Would you say that there’s still a preconceived – and oh SO wrong – idea that women are not the demographics targeted by this genre?
Everything is adapted into comics.
Fringe, X-Files, Eureka, Nightmare on Elm St., Friday the 13th, Resident Evil, Gears of War, WoW
Freakin everything!!!
And its not a really new thing. It seems to me that comics makes money for these franchises and thats a good thing because if it makes money, people are buying them.
I know that I am not buying any of these spinoff comics. I dont see a lot of other regular comic buyers buying these at my LCS either. So the buyers of these are probably fans of the source material. That makes sense.
And any attention to the comic medium is good for the regular comic fans like, I assume, most of us.
I loved the Dark Crystal cast from last week. I like the movie, and one of the first comics I ever read was the second issue of Marvel’s Official adaptation of that movie. I even picked it up again when I stumbled across it in a thrift store 4 or 5 years back.
Speaking of adaptations…
Translating comics or books into movies or vice versa is always a sticky business. Something is always lost because so often the medium is a lot of the message. Watchmen is the perfect example of this. The way the story is told is often more important that what is being told.
In another way Watchmen is easier to adapt than Batman, or Spiderman, because the story is complete with beginning, middle and end, where adapting other comics properties come with 30 to 70 years of baggage. The decision has to be made as to which version or era gets adapted, and certain fans feel ignored if their favorite incarnation is downplayed or even ignored.
As I’ve moved away from reading monthly comics, I’ve found the recent crop of superhero movies pretty enjoyable. Other adaptations that stand out are the Lord of the Rings movies and the first three Harry Potter films. As the books from that series have gotten longer the movies have gotten worse. In my opinion the best book to film adaptation of all time is probably To Kill a Mockingbird. A great book and a great movie.
The most disappointing adaptation(s) for me are the two attempts at Dune, with a third on the way. Very difficult to put on screen, and I don’t have high hopes for another one.
Call me old fashion but the only adaptation worth of the name I have ever seen is “Cyrano De Beregerac” with Gérard Depardieu. Why? Because it’s impossible to perfectly trasnlate any media into a movie without loosing something in traslation, be it because of time restrictions (who would watch a 12 hours long Lord of the rings? Wait, bad exemple) or simply creative differences. Only theater since it’s almost perfectly movie like to begin cna translate perfectly to film.
I’m not saying I didn’t like some of the adaptations I have seen, heck “Shogun” is my all time favorite mini-series, I’m just saying I prefer the source material to be left intact.
@Bruce: have you seen Children of Dune the Tv series, from what I heard it was spot on.