Oh, Comics! How I've missed you!

[trinityvixen]

Although I did make the effort to chat up the nice guy on the bus home from PAX (he was reading Terry Pratchett, watching Spooks and Chuck, and we talked about games we played at PAX), I really devoted most of my time to devouring comics on my iPad. I read a few middling-to-meh miniseries and then I started in on one of the two series I really want to have read. The two options were Y: The Last Man and Preacher. I was lazy and went alphabetically.

...I love Preacher. I have gotten through fully half the series already. True, it's a short series, but to do as much in two days? I really have fun with it, and I can totally see why all the rumors of its getting made into a movie/TV series, even on HBO, have never been realized into an actual product. I don't know that it would survive the transition to be as good even if it were done by the best of the best to the best of the best's ability. Frankly, love it or not, it's got a lot of high melodrama that wouldn't translate into a medium where people would actually have to say any of the things or explain the various backstories. Jesse's backstory, in particular, seems nearly impossible to film in such a way that wouldn't be ridiculously camp.

This is what I worry about with any adaptation, which I don't really have to worry about because holy shit, not even HBO is going to touch on this "God is a Dick" stuff. Supernatural gets away with angels being dicks, but I doubt anyone could really write a non-comedic take on God that wouldn't piss off absolutely anyone who believes in him. Hell, Kevin Smith couldn't get away with a comedy about God, and his God was quirky, cute, and ultimately loving. The same cannot be said about Preacher's God. It's still kind of a shame it won't get made. Were a channel like HBO to take the reins, this could be dynamite stuff. It would also be a funny pairing with something like True Blood, which has an equally irreverent attitude and a similar enjoyment of frivolous sex. But it doesn't need it, and it wouldn't probably be done right. Oh well.

We can also be glad to know that Sandman isn't getting an on-screen treatment either. Well, at least not this time that someone with clout and a will looked into making it. I'm not the hugest fan of Sandman (or Gaiman), but I know nothing could ever do that comic justice. We'd have to fundamentally alter what we expect of viewers versus what we expect of readers. TV has come a long way, especially with audiences increasingly willing--and demanding--serially plotted shows, but we're not there yet to do justice to something as multifaceted as Sandman. Believe you me, even though I'm not a fangirl for the series, I know that Sandman is just too far-reaching (more so than the likewise impossible-to-make-a-film-out-of-but-they-tried Watchmen) to really be made well. I'm not casting aspersions on the people who wanted to make this adaptation happen--Kripke seemed like a good choice, honestly--just that I don't think anyone can do it. Period.

Comments

[avram]

In what way did Kevin Smith not "get away with" making a comedy about God? Dogma got made, distributed, and did reasonably well at the box office. It didn't end his career or anything. The Catholic League complained, but they always complain.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Relativity principle applies here. By "not getting away with," I mean he basically was hounded for months before and after for his anti-Catholic film. I perceived the howl to be greater than you did, I suppose. It was a furor felt down to even the local paper level, and the place I grew up? Not known for being furiously conservative about such things.

It's probably a question of time dilation. These days, I know not to take such howls seriously. (Like some conservative group actually bitching about Idris Elba being an Asgardian in Thor.) When I was in high school, it seemed a bigger deal.

[onefishonly.livejournal.com]

Preacher was, I believe, the first comic series I read after Sandman, and the one that cemented the notion that "oh, I might like these so-called 'comics!'"

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Finished it!

I think I need to consume more comics this way--when I have them all together, without any worry about crossovers and what not going astray with the story, I really dig comics. Trade paperbacks for me!

[xannoside.livejournal.com]

Preacher is just overall fantastic. It's really the first comic series that made me start noticing Western comics outside of superhero comics (in my defense, I hadn't read any Sandman at the time).

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Hey, whatever gets you to liking more comics is a-okay with me. I tried giving non-superhero comics to someone at work and he just decided to up and fall in love with the Hulk comics that were out at the time. Eh, no accounting for taste.

Preacher fucking rocked, though.

[fairest.livejournal.com]

Did you give the bus guy your number? ;)

Oh, Preacher! I am so happy to hear you're enjoying it. I loved that series -- I read it back before I could afford to buy trades, which meant spending several subsequent weekends loitering around my local comic store working my way through the series on the sly. Color me unsurprised that it is totally your thing. :)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think I like the irreverence of it best, so I was a little less charmed as things got heavy towards the end. But I still like it. It's amazing how it still has the capacity to shock. I mean, the covers! I cannot believe those would go out among other comics covers. Some of them are just graphic, but I guess all of them are fabulous, so there's something there.

(And, oy! You with the teasing! Didn't I get enough of that this weekend? I exchanged e-mail addresses with the promise of potentially gaming with the dude. Nothing unseemly :P)

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

I doubt anyone could really write a non-comedic take on God that wouldn't piss off absolutely anyone who believes in him

Exhibit A: His Dark Materials. It pissed off a lot of readers, and the really controversial Church stuff was cut out of The Golden Compass film. Of course, the rest of the series was never adapted so they never actually got to the God part.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Great example. I mean, as was pointed out above, the sound and fury is usually just that, so it's not like people don't get away with these things, it's just that they don't try to very often. About the most anti-God movie I've seen recently would have to be the lamentable remake of Clash of the Titans. I doubt very much, however, that anyone is complaining about the glorification of the violent overthrow of the Greek pantheon. Change it to an uncomfortably modern God--Jesus, Allah, etc.--and suddenly: uproar, script rewrites, abandoned projects.

[lithoglyphic.livejournal.com]

I'm still really sad I don't get to see the sequels on the big screen.

[lithoglyphic.livejournal.com]

Er, or any screen.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

Questions for you:

You've read the Dark Tower, right? Have you read the comics? And if so, are they worth picking up?

And on that note, you've heard they're making either a movie or a tv series or both out of that, too, right? I am so skeptical and so full of Do Not Want, having just finished and kind of loved the books.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I have only gotten as far as book 3 in The Dark Tower series. I really liked The Drawing of the Three, but I had to slog through The Waste Lands, so I took a break. But I'll get to it. I haven't heard anything about the comics, alas.

I heard that the plan was for there to be movies but that there would also be TV series to fill in the gaps between movies. It might also have been vice versa--like the movies fill in gaps for the TV series. I admit to being intrigued by this idea--I think that using TV to supplement movies or vice versa is actually a good way not to lose material while still taking advantage of different media. But it's not really been done before. I also am not sure Ron Howard is the man to do it. He wants Javier Bardem or Viggo Mortensen for Roland, which...okay, now I'm back to being skeptical but optimistic because I think either of them would be awesome. (Viggo perhaps more than Javier, if only because Javier is too...big. Like, I see skinny Roland, not muscly one, you know?)

[viridian.livejournal.com]

I don't know if I like either of them for Roland, honestly! I always pictured him in my head as Clint Eastwood, who is obviously way too old now, but they need someone like that. They need that sort of squinty, steely, unreadable expression, and I feel like both of the above emote too much. Even Javier in No Country for Old Men was menacing in a more overt way than I see Roland ever being.

Books 3 and 4 kind of slow down a lot, but I feel like 5-6-7 pick up momentum again.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I feel you on the Clint Eastwood image. I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't the person that Stephen King had in mind as his own inspiration. There's so very few like him, and he towers over the imagination when you try to think of cowboys, doesn't he? I mean, if it's not John Wayne, it's gotta be Clint Eastwood.