Comic Book Resources

Interesting column.

But the fact is, no live action tv series translates well into comics.

Your points concerning VERONICA MARS apply to any tv / movie series to comic translation. It is not just the story that matters, but also the performances of the actors portraying the characters, which no comic book can capture.

Buffy comics have always sucked because what made the show work was not Joss’ idea, but the execution of the cast members playing the characters. No matter how well you ‘imagine’ hearing the voices, there is some intangible missing.
But Season 8 - which should have been arguably the best since they are written by Joss himself - are the worst pieces of tripe related to the character I’ve ever seen. I’ve read better FANFIC than this crap.

Xander as Nick Fury? “Oh, I prefer the Howling Commandoes version.” Really? Funny, seeing as the character wasn’t even ALIVE when that book was out and sorry, Joss, but you have NEVER really shown the comics geek Xander ever, so there’s no reason for us to think he was one. Stop winking and nudging the fanboys, you jackass. Oh, and while you’re at it, Joss, explain to me how the hell the Slayers are now this ‘international terrorist faction’. What does that make the Initiative, hm? Did you think we’d forget that Riley Finn and the rest of them are still out galavanting the planet kicking supernatural butt? Oh wait, let me guess - they’re sanctioned, so it’s okay. *rolls eyes*

As you pointed out, Greg, Joss lost his way with this series through TV a hell of a long time ago, and we DON’T need more of it. And we DON’T need him doing masturbatory work on Marvel or DC characters, either.

And Firefly / Serenity did not and would not work as a comic because of Joss’ usage of other languages. It’s one thing to hear Nathan Fillion spitting out Mandarin Chinese as part of his performance as Malcolm Reynolds. It’s a totally different thing to read it on a dialogue balloon and not know what the hell it means because you don’t have the physical performance or proper voice inflection to infer context as you do on TV, and because you don’t know the language yourself. What- I’m supposed to go learn a foreign language now so that I can read a freakin’ comic? No thank you.

While it’s true that there are successful books so to speak (you could make arguments for CSI, Buffy, Angel, blah blah blah…), the fact is, all it is is pandering to comics geeks who also happen to be fans of the shows. CSI has four different spinoffs (Vegas, Miami, New York, and I believe WITHOUT A TRACE was also a spinoff show). Do we really need a stupid ass comic? Do you really think we aren’t already on CSI overload, and that the fanbase for the TV series as a whole is going to give a rip that there’s a comic? IDW may sell 20,000 but when 20 MILLION viewers watch every week, what does that really tell you?

We don’t need tv show comics. What we need is NEW ORIGINAL CONTENT. The whole point is to keep the diversity of our entertainment mediums intact by not crossing them over into every medium imaginable.

But try telling that to anyone in the business.

Just FYI, Fox is burning off the last two Drive episodes on the 4th of July. I was a little underwhelmed, but I thought it could’ve found its creative footing eventually. But it wasn’t a hit and never would become one, so while I was a little disappointed (especially given Tim Minnear’s unfortunate track record… The Inside was the best procedural on network tv since the early days of NYPD blue, and nobody watched), I understand the decision.

With Veronica Mars, though… I dunno. Without the actors, there will definitely be something missing. And the lack of visuals might keep it from selling, but it can still be good. There are plenty of indie books with out that much going on visually (and relatively crude artwork) that work because they’re just well written.

“sorry, Joss, but you have NEVER really shown the comics geek Xander ever, so there’s no reason for us to think he was one.”

He was definitely a comic geek on the TV show. He spent 95% of his screen time hanging around with girls, which would generally be when a high school comic geek would try to suppress his geekiness, but it definitely popped up a few times. The first time I ever heard of Sgt. Rock was from Xander on Buffy.

The Inside was the best procedural on network tv since the early days of NYPD blue, and nobody watched…

Hey, Julie and I were watching! We loved that show!

…Although I don’t want to see it as a comic book.

Can’t believe you mentioned Cliffhangers…

While I’d second the “John Doe” wrap-up, y’know what television series I’d REALLY like to see get some closure in a comic (or novel, or just about anything)? “Now and Again,” starring Eric Close and Dennis Haysbert, and masterminded by Glenn Gordon Caron of “Moonlighting” fame.

That’s what I’d like.

I recall Xander and Oz getting into a debate about Silver Age variations of Kryptonite (which I guess he also shouldn’t have known about, except for these wonderful things called “back issues.”)

And at some point during the 5th or 6th season, I caught him reading a then-current issue of X-Men in the magic shop.

Oh, and he quoted the “action is his reward” line once.

One genre that does work well in comics form is the Western. I can think of tons of horse operas that could still work as comics: Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Maverick, Have Gun Will Travel, F Troop (heh, heh)… hell, Deadwood! How about The Further Adventures of The Man with No Name? True Grit: The Comic? And that’s not even counting the kid-oriented shows like Roy Rogers, Rin-Tin-Tin and Sky King. The storytelling possibilities are endless. Thanks to the timeless nature of the medium, Little Joe Cartwright can be perpetually 20 and Rooster Cogburn perpetually 60 or we can observe Little Joe at 60 and Rooster at 20. Sure, they’re old characters but most can still be seen on one cable network or another and there’s nothing that says the comics have to look or read like they did in the ’50s and ’60s.

Just a thought.

I dunno, I think The Inside could work as a comic. But if we could only have one Minear-run show in comic form, I would love to see some kind of Wonderfalls project. Really, one of my favorite shows of all time.

And you became my BFF when you asked for more John Doe. Ha! I liked that show more than Firefly at the time (though Firefly has since become one of my all-time faves as well, and we need more of it in some form). The creators did eventually reveal the answer to John Doe’s super-knowledge, and it was terribly lame– something like “he was dead, and God gave him all the knowledge in the universe, because that’s what happens to dead people, but then he came back to life!” I remember all the standalone episodes of that show being great, and all the plot-heavy ones being terrible.

And sue me, but I like the new Buffy comic. Yeah, it’s completely different from the show, but at least it’s better than season seven. I’m having fun with it.

Drive didn’t work for me, and I’ve only seen one episode of Veronica Mars. I watched specifically because of the Joss Whedon cameo appearance, and I found the show to be really dull, but perhaps I could be convinced otherwise. Maybe I’ll check out the DVDs.

I’ll have to watch Jack of All Trades one of these days. *And* Brisco County, Jr. And I call myself a Bruce Campbell aficionado. Sheesh.

I remember Green Hornet, and I liked it fine way back when. I’m sure it was bad, but I was young.

I’d love to see a MASH comic (I wrote a post on it earlier this year), but not picking up where the show left off– because no one needs an AfterMASH comic.

I’d also like to see Magnum PI in comics form, but I doubt the audience for that show would buy into a comic. Oh well.

An actual Doctor Who comic would be splendid. They don’t really seem to care in those short strips they put out.

And if we’re getting really obscure, a Lookwell comic picking up from the failed pilot written by Conan O’Brien and starring Adam West would be amazing.

While I’d second the “John Doe” wrap-up, y’know what television series I’d REALLY like to see get some closure in a comic (or novel, or just about anything)? “Now and Again,” starring Eric Close and Dennis Haysbert, and masterminded by Glenn Gordon Caron of “Moonlighting” fame.

That’s what I’d like.

Holy crap. You’re right.

I might have to hug you, now. …in a manly way.

I know that it’s not the point, but having Simpsons and Futurama and Family Guy comics rocks. Rocks hard, as they translate very, very well, especially if you have talented guys like Boothby or Fleckenstein writing your stories for you.

Now I won’t guarantee that I’d actually buy any and all comics based on these shows, but I think they could be good fodder for comics:

Eerie, Indiana - It’s got all of Greg’s elements in spades. Plus, with a history as a half-hour show, it’d be easier to adapt into 22-page installments.

The Lone Gunmen - OK, they did have a one-shot. But while the public is certainly burned out on X-Files, this spin-off still has potential.

Brisco County, Jr. - More Bruce Campbell goodness. Again, all four elements are met.

Legend - The short-lived UPN show that I doubt anyone remembers but me. And probably Greg. It’d work for many of the same reasons Brisco would.

The Great Mouse Detective - Granted, it’s a movie not a TV show, but I’d love to see SLG do this alongside their other Disney comics. It’s perfectly well-suited for an ongoing series of self-contained adventures. Licensing both the Titus characters and the Disney designs could easily be prohibitive, though.

The Buckaroo Banzai comic was dreadful.

I’d say a large reason is that Rouch, Buckaroo’s creater is basicly nuts (listen to his commentary on the DVD sometime). It just flopped, saddly.

The Buckaroo Banzai comic was dreadful.

…okay, now I’m sad.

The writer of John Doe came forward a year after it was cancelled to reveal that the reason he knew everything was that he’d actually died on the island, met god, and then come back to life. Yeah, that makes sense. I totally wouldn’t want that series’ creator to write the comic.

An ending to Reboot would be cool. Though the writers have all left Mainframe… sigh.

I don’t think MacRauch had as much to do with that Moonstone Buckaroo comic (which was, yes, dreadful) as they’d have you think. Probably a plot outline which the actual writer ran with.

Anybody remember “Strange Luck”? That would work as well as many of these suggestions, I think…

Greg, isn’t a Veronica Mars comic (and the Buffy comic, for that matter) pretty much exactly what the crew here are talking about when they say that the poor, dying, insular comics industry has to connect to the mainstream and appeal to more people? You’ve lost me on this one.

Actually, Rohan, for some reason, when comics pundits talk about the “mainstream,” they mean readers of serious, high-quality literary work. Which, if you pay attention to what the mainstream actually consumes, is either insane or hilarious, depending on your temperament.

I have to go with you on the Veronica Mars being too character and dialogue driven to make a good comic book. Novel yes, comic no.

Now I have to disagree with the naysaying on Buffy comics and the evolution of the characters. That show was great *because* the characters changed. Xander the man isn’t Xander the boy and that elevates it above the stunted non-growth of characters in other shows. They have changed with the changing circumstances and their status… this is a very good thing.

Add me to the vote for “Now and Again” I’ve been waiting for a DVD release of that show. Don’t know if it’s known well-enough for a comic version, though.
Does anybody know what’s happened to the comic version of “Stephen Colbert’s Tek Janson”? Oni solicited for 3 issues of it but we still haven’t seen the first one.

It’s worth noting that Slave Labor Graphics’ Gargoyles comic is also a continuation of a much-beloved canceled show. I haven’t read it, so I can’t comment on its quality, but it’s written by the show’s original creator and follows all the continuity and everything.

I’m not as convinced as some that Veronica Mars wouldn’t work as a comic — I see no reason why it should be unfeasible when something like Criminal works so damn well — but as a fan of the show I have no particular desire to see it. But Firefly adapted very well to comics and while I miss the interplay of the actors, I still think it works just fine as a comic and would love to see more.

Doctor Who is a great idea. 24 could work great if the real time thing was dropped — I haven’t read any of IDW’s comics, but I understand there was a 6-issue prequel to season 1 released that actually looked pretty snazzy, at least art-wise.

Micheal wrote: I recall Xander and Oz getting into a debate about Silver Age variations of Kryptonite (which I guess he also shouldn’t have known about, except for these wonderful things called “back issues.”)

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I don’t remember it, but the point is, they’d shown his room several times throughout the series - no action figures, no comics, he never wore a comics T-shirt that I can remember… nothing whatsoever to suggest comics geek. As far as debating various forms of kryptonite, you could know of that through the various Superman cartoons over the years, same with the Spider-Man “action is his reward” line as that is from the 60s cartoon. Keep in mind these characters are media icons, not merely comic characters. And I don’t remember the X-Men comic placement, either, but I admit I’ve not watched the series since it ended, but by Season Six, the first X-Men movie had been out, so who’s to say he didn’t just start picking them up after seeing the movie? Again, Joss never truly identified “comics geek” with that character. The comics / SF geeks were the “Three Amigoes”, not Xander.

Further, cartoon geeks and comics geeks are not synonymous. I had all sorts of friends in junior high and early high school who watched Thundercats, G.I. Joe, Transformers and the like and had the toys and lunch boxes and clothing apparel, but they looked at you like your were insane if you handed them a comic book, even the comic versions of those particular shows (which of course Marvel produced).

Funny how they could collect action figures in the boxes and never even play with the damn things, but comics were ‘childish’…

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Loren:

LEGEND - Richard Dean Anderson and John DeLancie western adventure series where Anderson’s character was an inventor / special agent or something. Basically went nowhere because none of UPNs starting shows lasted long.

Am I remembering right?

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Rohan:

***Greg, isn’t a Veronica Mars comic (and the Buffy comic, for that matter) pretty much exactly what the crew here are talking about when they say that the poor, dying, insular comics industry has to connect to the mainstream and appeal to more people? You’ve lost me on this one.****

No, that’s just the media hype b.s. line the industry feeds you. That’s exactly what you DON’T need to bring readers to the medium. You want to bring audiences to comics, you have to offer something they want and cannot get anywhere else. I’ve already gotten my TV shows and movie fixes, the average non-comics reader will tell you.

What the industry is doing is brand marketing, assuming that X amount of sales will occur based on brand name recognition. And it works, there is no mistake of that. But only if that audience wants that specific brand and your product meets up to the expectations associated with that brand.

What was the name of that cancelled Fox series from the mid-90’s where all the demons escaped from hell and Satan employed the dude whose wife got killed to track them all down (and shoot out their eyes)?

That was a pretty good show, and I bet it could make for good comics.

Brimstone?

Wild Wild West.

Yes. I think it would work perfectly.

And if they make a Veronica Mars comic, and somehow it works (which I think it can…just not as well as the show), then I want a Moonlighting comic. A GOOD Moonlighting comic.

I actually think Michael Madsen’s old show Vengeance Unlimited would make an excellent comic. It’s got a simple enough premise and it’s open-ended enough to allow for pretty much any number of stories to be done on a monthly basis. The only real problem I can see is that it just wouldn’t be the same without Madsen’s performance.

Funny, a few friends and I were having this exact discussion last night and joking about TV-to-comic transitions and their possible creative teams. I think the best one I came up with was The West Wing by Brian Michael Bendis.

Xander’s a psuedo-geek. He appreciates nerdy things, but doesn’t quite obsess over them. It’s a fine line, but honestly it’s not without real-world precedent. I can totally buy Xander having read some old Howling Commandos comics but not having a life-size Xena cutout.

Okay, moving on-

Some of these properties do lose something when you lose the actors. It’ll be nice to have some resolution to VERONICA MARS’ ending (though, Rob Thomas, you had to know there was a high chance the show would be cancelled, why not actually give it a solid ending?!), but no Kristen Bell and no Enrico Colantoni will make it a problem.

And honestly, a lot of the appeal and the instant-fan-making property of FIREFLY comes from the cast being so good and having such chemistry and you hear about what a magnificent time they had with each other- I would honestly be fine with no new FIREFLY/SERENITY type stuff if the same cast got some show they could do together for years until they finally got sick of each other. It’s not the only virtue the show has, but you lose something.

JACK OF ALL TRADES and DRIVE are both great ideas, though. And, despite the aforementioned loss of ensemble chemistry… ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT could make a screamingly funny comic book. It’s halfway there anyway.

Greg, isn’t a Veronica Mars comic (and the Buffy comic, for that matter) pretty much exactly what the crew here are talking about when they say that the poor, dying, insular comics industry has to connect to the mainstream and appeal to more people?

No.

At least it’s not what I’M talking about when I snarl about that. I’m talking about doing what manga is doing. Getting away from the nerd stuff entirely and telling general-interest stories in a book-length format to be distributed in a venue other than comics retailers that cater almost exclusively to hardcore hobbyists.

A Veronica Mars comic in the standard 22-page format from DC does almost none of those things. You could MAYBE argue that it is — somewhat — getting away from the nerd stuff. But that’s it.

Honestly, we might as well own up. Marvel and DC aren’t mainstream publishers any more and haven’t been, probably, since the 80’s. They are hobbyist, specialty publishers. And they’re the biggest we have! The ‘mainstream’ superhero stories aren’t happening in the comics any more. They are happening on TV or in the movies. This idea that if only the public could SEE what great superhero stories exist, if they KNEW, why then they would FLOCK to comics, is just not realistic. Not for the superhero comics that exist as they have for the last fifteen, twenty years.

So when you talk about a DC Veronica Mars you are still talking about a book for the hardcore comics-store faithful, really. That will be the bulk of its sales. Because DC is locked into this direct-market, print-on-demand distribution system. Some of us are deeply bothered by this because we remember when comics were a MASS MEDIUM, actual MAGAZINES competing on newsstands with all kinds of other entertainments. I think comics written for that market tend to be better-written and better-plotted than ones that are resigned to only being seen by the hobbyist/collector market.

Others may disagree. But THAT is the argument. It has very little to do with finding the right property to lure people IN to comics shops — I don’t care if it’s Veronica Mars or Buffy or Seinfeld or free beer — because I think as long as comics STAY only in comics shops they’re really never going to be more widely read than they are now. Jesus Christ, with superheroes ruling movies and TV the way they do today? The genre’s never been more popular, not even in the glory days of the Golden Age. And yet none of this is reflected in superhero comics sales. If it hasn’t happened by now, it’s just not going to.

But this isn’t one of those columns. This is more just… goofing off. A parlor game. What TV properties WOULD translate well to comics? I like licensed books, I think they present interesting structural challenges, and a lot of good work happens there, even if it gets snooted just because it’s a tie-in property.

The Prisoner: Shattered Visage is still available through Diamond. Just ask your Friendly Neighborhood Comic Shoppe to use Star Code STAR01037 to place the reorder for it.

21.John said …
Does anybody know what’s happened to the comic version of “Stephen Colbert’s Tek Janson”? Oni solicited for 3 issues of it but we still haven’t seen the first one.

Scheduled to hit shelves July 11.

FYI, the last two episodes of Drive I mentioned up top got pushed back to 7/13.

And the first seven pages of the Tek Jansen book are up on ew’s website, I was fairly unimpressed:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20043846_3,00.html

Xander’s been shown to have enough geeky knowledge about various subjects that the Howling Commandos thing didn’t strike me anywhere near as odd as the time he and Willow were dicussing the Captain and Tennille.

The issue for me with the Buffy comic isn’t that it isn’t in high school, when I think of the show, the era that resonates most is seasons five and six, which showed the characters struggling to deal with the troubles of “the real world,” in an emotionally powerful way. The end of season six resolved pretty much all the character arcs in a satisfying way, and the arrival of the potential slayers in season seven marked the end of the show as it was. Season seven was an appropriate stopping point, and even though I felt like I needed a bit more character closure, the story was over.

That’s why I’m annoyed Joss went for this big slayer organization setup with the comics series. It seperates all the characters, and takes them out of any sort of emotionally relatable situation. Season six is almost painfully real and relatable, this is totally removed from reality, and that means I don’t really care about what’s happening on any level other than loyalty to the characters from the show. Really, the Buffy followup I would have liked would be either an episode like ‘Restless’ or just an hour of the characters sitting around and hanging out, not dealing with any major issues, just giving us a glimpse into where their lives have gone.

‘The Critic’. Hollywood is, if anything, even riper for parodies now than it was then. (Admittedly, you do lose some of the great voice acting, but the same could be said for Simpsons and Futurama, and those sell alright…)

The Doctor Who strips work better in collected form; you can go to http://www.whona.com to have a look at some of the graphic novels. ‘Endgame’, in particular, is worth a look, seeing as how it’s got a couple of extremely cunning twists…but you might enjoy those twists more if you read ‘The Tides of Time’ first, which is very well-remembered by fans of the comics. (I’m hoping that someday they’ll get around to reprinting some of the old Grant Morrison or Alan Moore stuff, but I’m not holding my breath. Especially not on Moore. With the way British copyright works, I don’t know if they can.)

And Xander’s definitely a Nick Fury fan; he even referred to Riley and his wife as “Nick and Nora Fury” once, pulling off the double in references. In fact, I’d say Xander’s more probably a spy geek than a comics geek; he’s the sort of person who wishes he could be suave, cool, calm and collected in any circumstance, and so I can see him secretly being a big fan of James Bond, Nick Fury, Remo Williams, et cetera et cetera. It definitely didn’t pull me out of the story, though.

Bill Reed, I would certainly hug you too, in a similarly manly fashion, if an ending to “Now and Again” made it out somehow.

Actually, the most frustrating thing to me about that show’s demise is the fact that the cliffhanger ending was the first part of a two-part episode, which suggests that the second part was scripted to some degree. In fact, Caron was given the opportunity to “wrap” the series by rewriting/editing that final episode and refused, if I remember correctly. I’d be happy if somebody just posted the script, or synopsis, or outline, or whatever, online and let us read it.

Sorry to get off-track here, but dang, wondering about the Egg Man has bugged me for YEARS. Seems like creators could at least use the Internet to throw loyal fans some kind of bone. Or a comic.

“he even referred to Riley and his wife as “Nick and Nora Fury” once, pulling off the double in references.”

Now that’s nerdy.

RE: Xander’s Comic Book Cred.

There were at least four instances of Xander referencing in some manner various that I remember. 1) The aforementioned discussion with Oz regarding different types of kryptonite. 2) In one of the high school episodes (I think it was the one where the love spell goes awry, but I’m not certain of that) we see in Xander’s room an X-Men poster. This stood out to me at the time because it wasn’t a poster that you could buy, but rather it came with one of the boxed-set supplements for the old Marvel Super Heroes RPG. 3) In season five, Xander refers to Sgt. Rock (”This is war, isn’t it? If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Sergeant Rock, it’s that in war there are rules…”). 4) In season seven, Xander asks for the local comic book shop to hold as issue of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for him.

So, yeah, Xander’s a comic book geek. The bitching about SHIELD references is a non-issue.

All this talk about “Now and Again” had me a bit confused until I checked the show’s Wikipedia page. I kept thinking it was odd how many folks here were fans of that Sela Ward show, and wondering why anyone thought it would make a halfway decent comic.

i cant believe you all talk about shows the way you do, e.g. buffy was one of the most succesful tv show of all time i think people should watch it before they judge, but if you decide to watch charmed instead god help you. charmed is so s–t.

Actually, there WAS a WILD, WILD WEST continuation comic, a four–issue mini in the early ’90s from Millenium. Fairly good plotwise, but the resemblances to the actors came and went from one page to the next. Also, Dr. Loveless’ two famous accomplices, the huge Voltaire and the beautifully-voiced Antoinette (no matter how I spell that, it doesn’t look right to me), were there, even though they disappeared during the first and second seasons, respectively. All things considered, when two such totally devoted underlings weren’t around for so long (six and four episodes), they figured to be dead.

Concerning NOW’s Green Hornet, there were plenty of lovely interiors there, particularly but by no means exclusively initial artist Jeff Butler, and quite a few covers that I found mediocre, and even some that were too artsy–fartsy for me. Admittedly, the art in most of the TALES issues was abominable—WTF was Dell Barras doing in Vol. 1? My main gripe there, however, was several seemingly unnecessary content inconsistencies. I’d love to sit down with Ron Fortier and ask him about arbitrary interference from the owners, The Green Hornet Inc. I’m sure that a dozen years after the project came to an end he’d be able to speak freely, unless he’s in negotiations to revive it, of course (not likely, as he wasn’t part of it during the last year or so). There was a text piece in the back of their very first issue that started out as an excerpt from the 1940s Hornet’s written–well–after–the–fact memoirs (there was a description of his 1947–born daughter’s teen years, in a decidedly nostalgic past tense), but ended as a 1955–dated personal journal entry! That was just the beginning; see my indexes at the GCD for more details.

Perry:

I don’t remember the Sgt. Rock or the League references, and I don’t remember the X-Men Poster. But whatever. I really don’t care. The scene in the comic was still fan pandering b.s. writing on the part of Whedon as far as I’m concerned.

And that was hardly the only thing I took umbrage with in the comic. I didn’t like the “terrorist threat” angle, I didn’t like Dawn as Giganta and whole “Buffy and I can’t talk to one another” crap… there are all sorts of things with it that just don’t work for me, and it really doesn’t matter whether Joss is the creator of the characters or not- if the story is lame, the story is lame. It’s not like he’s a freakin’ god of writing, people. He’s produced his share of turds too - most of it noticeably in comics.

Queen of Swords was great fun! Though the fact that Spain is apparently short on actual female stuntwomen (particularly for equestrian and “leaping” gags) amused me on occasion….