Funny, I always thought the stereotype about modern comics/graphic novels was that they were TOO dark, as if they were striving too hard for Importance…
Well, dammit, I like “shallow story line, thin characterization, bright colors, ‘kickin’ & ‘splodin’, and hokey dialogue.” Maybe deep, mature insights are good some of the time, but some of us like the kitsch aspect too. ('60s DC is always fun.)
Well, shit. By my count that’s 0 for 2 of the OP examples. There has to be some real pig ignorance out there we can mock . . .
If there wasn’t, the CBLDF wouldn’t exist.
I have to agree with kaylasdad99 that calling them “comic books” is not helping.
In the true spirit of fighting ignorance, may I recommend Askia’s splendid comics thread over in Cafe Society to those who haven’t checked it out: we’re compiling a list of comics-related definitions, and it’s becoming a thing of beauty - but we need all the expert knowledge we can get - drag your geek cred over there and get stuck in! Astonish your friends! Impress girls! Define “cape”! {Actually, I’ve already done that}.
Thanks, Miller. Me no link good.
Hamsters hate me today, or I’d go into more detail.
Sorry, still not buying that Constantine is a superhero movie any more than The Sixth Sense was. Yes, Constantine and several other characters display mild psychic abilities, but so have characters in a lot of science fiction and fantasy movies. One reviewer used the term “occult noir”, which I liked a lot. Constantine fits a lot more comfortably alongside something like Angel Heart than, say, Spider-man.
As for Lisa Schwarzbaum - who certainly deserves her own Pit thread for a myriad of reasons - she does give Hellblazer a sort of backhanded compliment assuming that’s what she means by “its own subject matter”, which I suspect she doesn’t - I thinks she’s praising the theological aspects, which are significantly changed from the comic. Even if that’s the case, she still uses “comic book movie” as a dismissive of light, non-challenging material. Her attitude toward those “geeky” disappointed fanboys is a little suspicious, too.
Mind you, it wasn’t just Constantine, or those two reviewers, I had in mind when I wrote the OP. It’s just the freshest example in a long line. I recall the Daredevil articles and reviews being pretty clueless. Granted, one could at least argue that there was some value in using those old comic panels, but would it have killed them to use Maleev’s current work on the title?
Andros, if you want plenty of pig-ignorance by reviewers, get thee over to Rotten Tomatoes and start reading. I’ve seen everything from “Constantine is brought back to life from his suicide attempt against his will” to a reference to the “comic strip Hellblazer,” not to mention plenty of gratuitous slaps against the comics medium. I just picked on a couple of the better known reviewers. Feel free to bring your favorites into this thread. I need to find some hamster bribes.
I have to disagree. I generally dislike any attempt at trying to make comics “acceptable” by using fancy terms to refer to them. I think the point is that comic books should be accepted for what they are, and readers of them shouldn’t have to feel as though they have to dress them up in order to not have the masses look down on them. Similarly:
I think that part of the point is also that comics have nothing to apologize for in this regard. Shallow storylines and bright colors? That brings to mind a lot more blockbuster movies than it does mainstream comic books, to say nothing of novels that regularly top the best-sellers list. If anything, I’d say the ratio of quality product to bad product is quite a bit better for comics than many other media.
Maybe “comic book” isn’t the best term ever (most of them aren’t especially funny, and they’re not really books - more like pamphlets) but it’s what they are. And anyway, it’s not like “movie” is such a dignified term when you get right down to it.
I’d also like to preserve the distinctions that already exist between “comic books” and “graphic novels” - the latter generally understood to be something that first appears in a hardcover or trade paperback format and not in a monthly book (Blankets, Maus, The Death of Captain Marvel) although I’m aware that definitions are fluid.
There’s a good story about this in the backup story in Justice League #50 from… what, 1990/91? I got it when I was about six or seven years old, anyway (one of my first comics!). Guy Gardner visits the Justice League creative team and they correct him when he uses terms like “comic books” and “cartoonists” (“We call them senquential artists now, Guy”). Great little story.
I, of course, totally agree with the idea that comics as a medium need to be taken more seriously and that many, many movie reviewers are absolutely full of shit when they try to talk about them. Cultural snobbery absolutely drives me insane and cultural snobs are, uniformly, idiots.
People who dismiss comics offhand are only slightly more tolerable than those people who refuse to read any works of fiction period because they see them as “worthless.” And comic books get it worse that just about any other medium - I’m tempted to say that animation is almost as bad, but I think that’s changed somewhat with The Simpsons.
Anyway, I think what I’m getting at is that people who disrespect comics can fuck themselves with snow shovels.
As much as I agree with the thrust of the OP, I have to disagree with this part.
Kirby(esque) art, 4 colour printing, and goofy sound effects, while I wouldn’t want to subsist on a steady diet of comics full of them, are iconic images of the medium. And, no, the sound effects aren’t particularly embarrassing to me. Silly, yes, embarrassing, no.
Icons, yes, but icons of a bygone age that rarely has any relevance when the medium is being discussed in a modern context. It’s as if every time one discussed the films, even a modern film about to hit the theaters, all one showed were clips from classic silent movies. Outside of the very occasional deliberately retro work, or a reprint of something from the period, what comic still looks like that? Even the most Kirbyesque of the modern creations doesn’t, and hasn’t for a long time.
YMMV. In the comics circles I usually travel, we flinch at the mere mention of such things.
Well, “comic book movie” does mean light, non-challenging material. And my point was that’s not necessarily a bad thing – I loved the X-Men movies, for example, and think that they had just the tiniest hint of subtext, if any. And I still have to disagree with your take on that review; she named Hellblazer specifically when she talked about the movie’s “own subject matter,” making it pretty clear she was saying that the movie failed both as an adaptation and as a movie that could stand on its own merits.
And you know I hate to break it to you, but a majority of comic book fans are geeky fanboys. I’m one, and I see dozens of copies of myself every time I go to a comic book store or a convention. Not all stereotypes are baseless, and they’re not all entirely pejorative. That’s not the same thing as saying that there are no fans of comics that aren’t nerds, and no comics that have “deep” material. But the Geeks Are Out There, and it’s silly to pretend that they’re not.
Well I don’t have enough rolleyes for the people who insist on calling them “graphic novels” to distinguish themselves from “comic books.” To me, it just seems like people missing the point. They grow out of the phase where they feel like they have to hide their copies of Sandman inside a big hardbound copy of Great Expectations, but still think you have to hide your copy of Superman inside a copy of Eightball.
It’s all a case of people getting wrapped up in what Their Art and Entertainment Choices Say About Them, instead of just what’s good and what’s bad. It’s the old High Art vs. Low Art debate again. You’ve got people like Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, who put out great stuff, don’t get me wrong, but they still seem preoccupied with the notion of elevating comic books to the realm of the Graphic Novel, by going all “meta” with them.
And then you’ve got people like Mike Mignola with Hellboy, who’s just focusing on telling cool stories with great art and a sense of pacing that only comic books can provide – and don’t really care about High vs Low, but just what works for the story. And it ends up combining traditional folklore, history, homages to Lovecraft, with fight scenes, corny jokes, and gratuitous comic book sound effects like “ZING!” and “POW!”
And since I hate the thought of this thread getting moved out of the Pit for turning into a reasoned artistic discussion: Fuck Lisa Schwarzbaum!
And my point was, it shouldn’t. Until such time as “novel movie” comes to mean “light, non-challenging material”, it’s a badly reasoned phrase.
Please show me where I pretended they’re not out there, especially when my OP specifically mentioned “sweaty Wolverine t-shirts” and Cat Piss Man. There are plenty of them out there. There are plenty more who are not. Because the former are more colorful and easier to poke fun at, they’re the ones who attract media attention and wind up reinforcing the stereotype that Comics Are For Geeks, and We Don’t Have to Pay Attention to the Opinion of Geeks Because They’re Geeks.
They’re also not iconic images that say ‘comic book’ immediately.
The iconic image of video games is a blocky character running around a repeating background. Video games haven’t looked like that for a long time, either, but if you want to say ‘video game’ in a quick image, that’s what you use.
Iconic images are about instant recognition, and getting the point across in a single image you might only spend a few seconds looking at.
You need to meet a better class of comics geeks. Such a lack of appriciation for the history of the medium is appalling.
But I think it’s getting hung up on the phrase instead of the implications of it. Ghost World and X-Men are both movies based on comic books*. Only one of those is a “comic book movie.” They’re both good movies, it’s just that only one is aiming to say something profound, and the other is aiming to be solid, reasonably intelligent entertainment.
*[sub]I don’t think Daniel Clowes as any pretensions about his work being called “comic books,” but then I know next to nothing about him, so I could very well be wrong.[/sub]
That last bit is the only bit that matters. Geeky or non-geeky isn’t what makes a piece of art or entertainment “valid,” it’s the quality of the work itself. And it should stand on its own merits, not because of the “type” of people who enjoy it.
It’s a real stretch to say that the “vast majority” of the people who read comic books aren’t geeky. There’s a reason why superhero and sci-fi books and other “light, unchallenging material” outsells any number of “indie” books, and it’s not just because the media have brainwashed people into thinking that comics are uncool territory.
And there’s a reason that the people in sweaty Wolverine T-shirts and Cat Piss Man are unpleasant people, and it’s not because of their love of stories told through sequential panels of art and text. My point is that saying “Novels: Good, Comics: Bad” is absurd, but so is saying “Indie Comics and Graphic Novels and Maybe Sandman Before It Got All Popular And Overrated: Good, Superhero Comics: Bad.”
There are good superhero stories; there are really really really bad, self-indulgent, navel-gazing indie comics. Some of the best work in comics history was done by Carl Barks and Walt Kelly, working with bright colors and cartoon animals.
If I’m reading too much into your OP and subsequent posts, then I’ll be happy to be corrected. But I’m getting the impression that you’re validating comics as an art form by distancing them from superheroes and Jack Kirby and “kiddie” books. I’m saying that there’s no need; judging the merit of a work by its genre is as silly as judging the merit of a work by its medium.
Nothiner wrong with either goal, but why use the term “comic book movie” to be synonymous with only the latter form of entertainment? All that does is narrow and reinforce the general public’s perception of what actual comics contain. Why should the name of an entire medium come to mean a style of entertainment?
I agree. However, critics from outside the medium almost inevitably dismiss readers - especially if they object to alterations in the source material - as “geeks”, and that’s usually used in a way intended to trivilize their objections, along the lines of “they’re objecting to minor nitpicky stuff that doesn’t matter to the general public because they’re geeks.” People who wondered about, say, the massive changes between the novel and the movie of Under the Tuscan Sun were not dismissed in a similar fashion, and I don’t think comic readers should automatically be labeled so.
I agree completely on all counts.
You’ve clearly read so much into my posts I hardly know where to begin. I really don’t think I could have been any clearer that I already was, but I will try this one last time. There is nothing wrong with the superhero genre per se (and in fact there are quite a few on my shelves). I am disappointed that so many people who claim to be fans of the medium (as opposed to fans of superheroes who get their fix through comics) read only superheroes, and usually only superheroes with their roots in twenty-thirty-forty year old characters.
I object strongly to the automatic assumption that all comic books are written about superheroes, especially when the people making those assumptions are paid, professional writers. I get especially cranky when such writers try to shoehorn discussions about non-superhero works into their preconceived notions about superheroes. Yes, Jack Kirby was a GOD and has had a lasting influence on the medium but although his fingerprints are all over the medium, his style isn’t a common one now. If one is discussing the current state of the medium (as opposed to its history) it’s inappropriate to repeatedly show graphics that make it appear that comics still look like they did in the 1960’s. Having more comics aimed at kids is a GOOD thing, and I’d never be ashamed that the medium produces them (you will pry my copies of Leave It To Chance from my cold, dead hands), although I’m not so sure that the superhero genre is as naturally kid-friendly as many people assume.
And Tengu, no one in my comics circles deny the importance of many of the tropes I’ve discussed as part of the historical context of the medium. It’s just that reading that material for pleasure is unthinkable. Og knows I’ve tried. Nor can my friends and I be particularly anomalous, or we’d be seeing a lot more original material like them being published.
Tropes? Historical context of the medium? Did somebody allow Pauline Kael to post here? 
Nitpick: I don’t know if I’d necessarily lump Alan Moore into this catagory. I’ve recently started reading this America’s Best Comics stuff, and it’s just plain fun.
I’ve read almost all of Tom Strong, a single issue of Terra Obscura, and a few issues of Promethea. It’s good stuff, but it all feels like self-conscious deconstruction. It’s even smug at times.
Tom Strong is the only one that really stuck with me, and it’s the closest to being “fun.” But still, there are bits where he’s trying to be funny, instead of just wry and clever, and they’re cringe-inducing. And although I was a big fan of the series, it’s too “meta” to have any real substance to it – I’ve forgotten almost everything about it except that it was a post-post-post-superhero retro-homage series.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, of course, is just awesome, and genuinely funny. I guess I would see it as “self-conscious deconstruction” if I’d read more of Jules Verne and such, but I just see it as a clever germ of an idea that got turned into a story that’s good on its own merits.
The thing is, a comic book has greater potential to be a good film, at least visually, than a novel. With the adaptation of a novel, the director and DP (cinematographer) have to decide how true they want to stay to descriptions of the characters and settings, or finalize them if they’re vague in the novel, and agree on what “look” the film should have. With the adaptation of a comic book, they already know what everything looks like, and the action scenes are already storyboarded for them.
So saying that a movie based on a series of comic books can’t be any good is wrong. If the director and DP make use of the advantages they’re given, then the other factors are the same as they would be for any other film: script, acting, and so forth. If someone still wants to turn up their nose, they can, but they might be cheating themselves of a worthwhile experience.