Welcome to The Famous Five No.4 – Since the dawn of film, cinema has always looked eagerly to the novel for inspiration. Almost every single Hitchcock film is based on a book or short story. The Harry Potter books continue to transform magically into big budget gold dust, but nowadays film has its eye firmly fixed on another type of novel – the graphic novel. With this is mind, Liam Geraghty and Craig O’Connor of the Comic Cast podcast, pick some of the best (and worst!) of comic book adaptations to film.
Liam begins:
Nothing in recent years has lost me so much sleep than these three words – Spielberg. Tintin. Adaptation. Why Steven? Why do you have to do it? Why can’t you leave the world’s most famous quiff alone? What age are you? Sixty? Isn’t it time you did your sex movie? Kubrick was around that age when he did his and that turned out pretty ok. Just please leave my asexual ginger alone!
Ok, so slight freak out there but this is what happens when movie directors reach out and grab a treasured character. You sweat. You think ‘how can they possibly do it justice?’ It’ll never be like the original, but you know what? That’s not always a bad thing. A little creative allowance can turn a good comic book into a great film. Take my first choice for example:
Ghost World
Ghost World by Daniel Clowes is arguably one of the most well known independent comic books, in part thanks to its film adaptation. The comic book was a sleight 80 pages long, a fractured melancholy story of two girls who’d just graduated from school and were struggling with angst and what to do next. From this comic, director Terry Zwigoff delivered a bloody good film. A chunk of the credit for this has to go to the screenwriter, none other than the comic books author Mr. Daniel Clowes who fleshed out one short thread of the comic book into the basis of the plot for the entire film as well as restoring many other of the comics’ key tableaus to deliver a gratifying and beautiful film to watch.
But then came:
Art School Confidential
So having just read that gushing paragraph about director Zwigoff and comic book hero / screenwriter Clowes you’d be forgiven for thinking that a good idea might be for them to team up again, to bring another of Clowes comics to the screen. How wrong you’d be. A couple of years after Ghost World, along came Art School Confidential – the film adaptation of a 4 page comic story. Wait what? Yes they were crazy bastards. High on the joy of making one of a cult hit, they tried their hand at it again but instead of tackling one of Clowes longer comic books like ‘Pussey!’ or “Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron’ they went for a short piece from Clowes comic ‘Eightball’ that was simply about an art student describing the various nut jobs in his art class. Sure that might have been a foundation to build something good on but it wasn’t to be and the result was an almost ridiculous murder mystery plot about a man killing people so he could paint them and be famous. Even the return of Ghost World cast member Steve Buscemi couldn’t save this mediocre mess.
But what of superheroes and their film foibles and follies? I pass you over to Mr. Craig O’Connor.
The Fantastic Four
In the last few years Superhero movies have really hit mainstream, encouraging everyone in Hollywood to throw $100 million at every Superhero property in existence. So it can be hard to believe that this wasn’t always the case. Made for less than 1% of the budget for the most recent Fantastic Four movie, and produced by legendary b-movie producer Roger Corman, this first attempt at a Fantastic Four movie left a lot to be desired in terms of plot and special effects (For perspective, this movie was made the same year Pulp Fiction and Jurassic Park were released). The plot follows the basic origin story as the Fantastic Four come to terms with their unsolicited powers and face off against their nemesis Dr. Doom. Unfortunately this film was never actually released as it was only made to ensure Fox held onto the movie rights for these characters, but any fan owes it to themselves to track down a bootleg of this gem. Despite the cheese and bad acting, it manages to have a heart. Unlike the recent Fantastic Four movies which just have cheese and bad acting.
The Tick
A lot of people are familiar with The Tick from the animated series which began running in1994. But a lesser known gem is the highly under-rated Live Action TV Show based on the same character. The Tick began life as a comic book spoof superhero back in the late 80’s. The Tick is nearly invincible and has super strength. Unfortunately he’s a bit dim, prone to distraction and doesn’t understand the world around him. The live action TV series didn’t have the budget to focus on spectacle and special effects, so it cleverly focused on character, with an inspired cast and some of the best comedy writing seen on TV to date. And with people like Barry Sonnenfeld and Larry Charles at the wheel, there was no way this show wouldn’t be a success. Except it wasn’t and only 8 episodes were ever made.
*Craig passes the buck back to Liam*
So there you have it. Some adaptations are good and some are bad. It’s practically poetry. So which category will Spielberg’s Tintin fall into it? Who knows, but cut him some slack. He made ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ for fucks sake.
Craig & Liam host the Comic Cast podcast every fortnight. www.thecomicccast.com
