Translations: to and from comics
"The problem is that if comics are always seen in terms of cinema, then ultimately they can only be a film that doesn't move and doesn't have a soundtrack"
"I met with Terry Gilliam to talk about the Watchmen film, and he said "How would you make a film of Watchmen?" And I said, "Well, frankly, Terry, if anyone had bothered to consult me before this point, I would have said 'I wouldn't.""
- Both Alan Moore, interview with mustard magazine (which, incidentally, is very good. Picked it up at random in a comics shop...it's sort of a Private Eye for geeks).
"It is not the literal past, the facts of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language." - Brian Friel, "Translations"
------------------------
I've been reading the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics - the season 8 ones - and thinking about the process of turning a TV show or film into a comic book (and vice versa).
How easy is it to "translate" a comic into another medium? The language of comics and the language of TV and film have a lot in common, but they're not the same. Perhaps like UK and US English, comics and other visual narratives...divided by a common language?
Or perhaps it's more a case of being divided by people's perceptions, with comics as the helpless, handbagged doggie in the special relationship.
The idea that a film based on a comic book has to be "comic-booky" - in the pejorative sense of dumb/schlocky - is fairly well entrenched in the hive brain of the popular imagination. Reading online reactions to the Buffy season 8 comics*, a lot of the comments complain that this continuation of the story isn't as "real" as the tv incarnation, that it's a poor substitute.
I'll put aside the idea that everyone who doesn't love comics and recognise their true glory needs drowning in a sack to wonder.... Maybe it's natural, to love something most in the medium you found it in first? Or maybe something is inevitably lost in translation, especially when you're writing for an audience who you know wants you to recreate the original feeling of the story as it appeared in the first medium.
The first two issues of the comic - The Long Way Home parts 1 and 2 - have a lot of charm, and some interesting, you-can-only-do-that-in-comics narrative moments, but there are a couple of problems.
Firstly, when you're used to a single unit of Buffy being one episode, they feel very thin. The action of one issue only amounts to a fraction of an episode. Not sure exactly how large a fraction, though I'm sure someone's worked it out. Will find and post another time. Perhaps the only solution to that is waiting however long it takes for the trade paperback to come out, to avoid the frustration of a fragmented narrative.
Secondly, there's the issue of the humour. A lot of the comedy on Buffy-the-tv-show was based on intonation, on vocal nuances and on facial reactions. While facial expressions can be used for great comic effect in a comic (ok, wishing those meanings didn't have the same word right now, makes things tricky), a comics artist can't replicate the experience of seeing an actor's face change.
And yet, the comics are still laugh-out-loud funny in places, so perhaps the humour will just be a bit hit and miss until the writers and artists perfect the transition to a new medium?
Re the Alan Moore quote at the top, the one about Watchmen, I don't agree that Watchmen is unfilmable. I just think that it would need to be approached carefully so that the essence of the story could be taken and transformed into something new by making it into a film.
I reckon the best way to do it justice would be via an unfaithful adaptation, or rather, to be faithful to the spirit by playing fast and loose with the form. The way the comic plays with time and space and perception could be expressed on film without seeming silly or over the top - think Stalker. Like nudity, if it was done tasteful-like, I think there's a good film in Watchmen.
I can see why people - Alan Moore in particular - would be sceptical about comic-book-to-film adaptations, given that I can't think of any good ones off the top of my head. Hmm... maybe Spiderman? I rather liked Batman Returns, but I was 12...
But, whether or not any good ones have been made so far, that doesn't mean it's not possible, if the adapters show respect both to the origin medium and the medium they're working in.
Rather a big "if" for Hollywood, but I'm still praying for Halo Jones the movie.
*These ones - http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=14-111 -which Joss Whedon has indicated are meant to be just as much a part of the Buffy canon as the shows.
"I met with Terry Gilliam to talk about the Watchmen film, and he said "How would you make a film of Watchmen?" And I said, "Well, frankly, Terry, if anyone had bothered to consult me before this point, I would have said 'I wouldn't.""
- Both Alan Moore, interview with mustard magazine (which, incidentally, is very good. Picked it up at random in a comics shop...it's sort of a Private Eye for geeks).
"It is not the literal past, the facts of history, that shape us, but images of the past embodied in language." - Brian Friel, "Translations"
------------------------
I've been reading the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics - the season 8 ones - and thinking about the process of turning a TV show or film into a comic book (and vice versa).
How easy is it to "translate" a comic into another medium? The language of comics and the language of TV and film have a lot in common, but they're not the same. Perhaps like UK and US English, comics and other visual narratives...divided by a common language?
Or perhaps it's more a case of being divided by people's perceptions, with comics as the helpless, handbagged doggie in the special relationship.
The idea that a film based on a comic book has to be "comic-booky" - in the pejorative sense of dumb/schlocky - is fairly well entrenched in the hive brain of the popular imagination. Reading online reactions to the Buffy season 8 comics*, a lot of the comments complain that this continuation of the story isn't as "real" as the tv incarnation, that it's a poor substitute.
I'll put aside the idea that everyone who doesn't love comics and recognise their true glory needs drowning in a sack to wonder.... Maybe it's natural, to love something most in the medium you found it in first? Or maybe something is inevitably lost in translation, especially when you're writing for an audience who you know wants you to recreate the original feeling of the story as it appeared in the first medium.
The first two issues of the comic - The Long Way Home parts 1 and 2 - have a lot of charm, and some interesting, you-can-only-do-that-in-comics narrative moments, but there are a couple of problems.
Firstly, when you're used to a single unit of Buffy being one episode, they feel very thin. The action of one issue only amounts to a fraction of an episode. Not sure exactly how large a fraction, though I'm sure someone's worked it out. Will find and post another time. Perhaps the only solution to that is waiting however long it takes for the trade paperback to come out, to avoid the frustration of a fragmented narrative.
Secondly, there's the issue of the humour. A lot of the comedy on Buffy-the-tv-show was based on intonation, on vocal nuances and on facial reactions. While facial expressions can be used for great comic effect in a comic (ok, wishing those meanings didn't have the same word right now, makes things tricky), a comics artist can't replicate the experience of seeing an actor's face change.
And yet, the comics are still laugh-out-loud funny in places, so perhaps the humour will just be a bit hit and miss until the writers and artists perfect the transition to a new medium?
Re the Alan Moore quote at the top, the one about Watchmen, I don't agree that Watchmen is unfilmable. I just think that it would need to be approached carefully so that the essence of the story could be taken and transformed into something new by making it into a film.
I reckon the best way to do it justice would be via an unfaithful adaptation, or rather, to be faithful to the spirit by playing fast and loose with the form. The way the comic plays with time and space and perception could be expressed on film without seeming silly or over the top - think Stalker. Like nudity, if it was done tasteful-like, I think there's a good film in Watchmen.
I can see why people - Alan Moore in particular - would be sceptical about comic-book-to-film adaptations, given that I can't think of any good ones off the top of my head. Hmm... maybe Spiderman? I rather liked Batman Returns, but I was 12...
But, whether or not any good ones have been made so far, that doesn't mean it's not possible, if the adapters show respect both to the origin medium and the medium they're working in.
Rather a big "if" for Hollywood, but I'm still praying for Halo Jones the movie.
*These ones - http://www.darkhorse.com/profile/profile.php?sku=14-111 -which Joss Whedon has indicated are meant to be just as much a part of the Buffy canon as the shows.
posted by Scutage at 2:45 PM
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