Why DO We Want Comics To Be Movies (or TV Shows)?

Something you see pop up on Craigslist is guys who have this idea for a comic. Maybe they've even written a bit of it. And for no pay whatsoever, they want you to do all the work of drawing it, for perhaps exposure, or money on the back end when, glory be, it gets made a movie. Oh yes, this person knows people who will do that. And I'm sure some young cartoonists fall for this crap, and waste valuable time on such projects.

Because these days, from the big two(where it's really just about the corporate synergy) on down, it seems everyone aspires to make a movie from their comic, or to have one made of their favorite comics.

The reason people want comics on film or TV--besides those that make the $ from it, and that's totally understandable--is that they feel validated. "SEE! My habit's at the multiplex!" Because that gives it such class. And I suppose if you think respectability is a function of how much money is made, and the scale thereof, sure. It's a number you can point to. Definitely.

But think about that--Because somehow once something's a film, that validates it as a non-geeky grownup cultural object? Is that what you're aspiring to? I don't want to watch a comic on film. Comics do comics much better. I want to see a FILM on film. I love both media too much to, except in a few cases, enjoy the halfway bastard thing that usually results from trying to split the difference between the two.

Get your mind off the movie project and just MAKE BETTER COMICS.

And I'm relieved that to this day the long-in-production PREACHER adaptation is still vaporware. May it remain so, forever.

THIS AIN'T A LIBRARY

Labels: comics, film, you're wrong

  ¶ June 23, 2011