Yesterday, I talked about movies and TV get translated into a comic format; today I'd like discuss comics being transferred to film.

Generally, I have no problem with this. There are a near-infinite of directions one can take. From the campy Adam West portrayal of Batman to the more series portrayals in the X-Men movies. From the almost literal translation of Frank Miller's Sin City to the I-wouldn't-have-known-it-came-from-a-comic-if-you-hadn't-told-me approach of Men in Black. All of those and more are equally valid, and I know that I for one certainly appreciate that it's not just superheroes making the transition from the comic pages to the big screen.

However, I do have a problem with so many people citing the superhero movies AS comic book movies. The History of Violence, Road to Perdition, and American Splendor were all excellent movies that were based on comic book properties, but the source material from those are often ignored by the general population for whatever reason(s).

Here's the issue that ends up confusing many people: comic books are a medium. They can be about any subject matter and can be created in any genre. Films are a medium and they, too, can be about any subject matter and can be created in any genre. Superheroes are a genre that happens to be popular in the comic book format. Film noir is a genre that is generally out of vogue right now, but was quite popular in the first part of the 20th century. The notion of a "comic book movie" is really invalid because you're effectively saying that you're using the two very different mediums simultaneously. Although, one could make a cogent arguement that Sin City was indeed a "comic book movie" that blended the two mediums, those arguements would by and large be invalid for Batman Begins, Superman Returns, or any other movie based on a comic book property. Even animated shows like Justice League Unlimited and Teen Titans owe little more than the original character designs to comic books -- the stories, framings and formats are based more directly on the accepted norms of the TV format. The only animated show that seems to owe more allegiance to comic books would be the 1966 Marvel Super Heroes cartoon, which lifted panels directly from the comics and did the most minimal of animations.

Again, I have no problems moving stories from the comic medium to a film medium, but I would like people to recognize that "comic book movies" really should include the excellent (and, let's face it, not-so-excellent) material that aren't superheroes. Let's not dismiss Ghost World and Bulletproof Monk just because the characters don't wear capes. Let's place credit where credit is due and highlight the vastly more creatively free medium of comic books (which is another post for another time!) when we talk about "comic book movies."

One of my favorite TV shows of all time is Joss Whedon's Firefly. Serenity, not surprisingly, is one of my favorite movies. Why they're my favorites is the subject of another post, but what I'd like to discuss today is the crossover from the film format to comic books.

I think this particular series highlights exactly the issue surrounding switching from film to comics. The story is written, in part, by Whedon so the plot and story structure make sense given the other stories about this 'verse he has written. The problem is that we're dealing with characters who are known by the actors that portrayed them. Malcolm Reynolds, for all intents and purposes, IS Nathan Fillon, just as sure as Luke Skywalker IS Mark Hammill and Indiana Jones IS Harrison Ford. The actors were able to step into the roles so well, and make the characters their own, that it becomes difficult to separate the actor from the role.

Which means that any version of the character we come across later is directly compared to the actor. In the case of novels and prose, we don't see the character visually so as long as the basic content of their dialogue is in-character, we can "hear" the actor's voice delivering their lines. We can take the often-vague, verbal descriptions and easily drop in the actor's face.

With comics, however, that's not really the case. We see a visual representation of the actor, and as an audience we expect it to look like consistently like the actor. In some cases, the artist gives us a great deal of flexibility. For example, Matt Feazell (famous for his Cynicalman comics) represents characters so simplistically -- literally stick figures -- that his reasonable approximation of Fillon would look exactly like his reasonable approximation of Ford. By contrast, Will Conrad -- who drew the Serenity comic -- proved on many occassions throughout the book that he can draw an excellent Fillon (and Staite, and Baldwin, and Glass, and...) that every panel that doesn't look exactly like the actor stands out like a sore thumb. Indeed, compare the drawings of Fillon on pages 2 and 3 of the first issue...

On page three, Malcolm indeed does look more like Ford than Fillon!

Granted, being able to draw an actor well is difficult, and being able to draw them well repeatedly throughout a story is exceedingly difficult. By no means am I trying to single out or slight Conrad for his work here, but he's been put into a very difficult position of trying to capture the look and the spirit of several actors in a variety of postures, poses, and expressions that are going to be scrutinized by fans. But that's the inherent problem with moving from film to comics. Frank Miller's drawings are abstract enough that you can put some prosthetics on Mickey Rourke and make him look like exactly like Marv, but going from the specific (an actual actor) to the abstract (a drawing of him/her) is insanely more difficult and will likely plague comic artists for many years.

You may have noticed in the past several years, that a number of large book store chains have been popping up. Most notably -- at least here in Ohio -- are Borders and Barnes & Noble. That's largely because, in simple terms, they're successful. Nothing breeds success like success, after all. But what makes them successful and can those elements be applied to comic book shops?

Well, the first thing they have going for them is selection. You can find almost any new book at either store, and if you ask a clerk to order something they don't have, they'll be able to do that fairly quickly, provided the book is still in print. I think more comic shops need to do this. Sure, you can walk into almost any shop and pick up the latest X-Men or Batman, but that's the comic book equivalent of whatever's been plugged by Oprah Winfrey or the Harry Potter books. Everyone's going to have those, and it's nothing particularly special to make the store stand out. But, by having a larger selection that includes more independent titles, you're more likely to attract a more diverse audience and, more importantly, cross-sell those titles. "Say, if you like Ultimate Spider-Man, you might try Powers. It's by the same guy." "Cool cover, eh? It's by Eric Powell. He does The Goon as well."

Another thing the larger bookstores have done is made the atmosphere more comfortable. If you're just looking for a book, you can go to Amazon or wherever and order it online. In many cases, more cheaply than you can by going to the store and buying it yourself. But if you want to browse, you have to go to a bookstore. Knowing this, bookstores have set themselves up as being as browseable as possible. They tend to have relatively wide ailes, and a number of areas specifically designed for reading. Large, comfy chairs with side tables and such. Many bookstores even have coffee houses within the stores. You can pick up a book off the shelf and sit down to read for a while. Now, there's some percentage of people who are certainly going to take advantage of that and treat the bookstore as a library to be sure, but I can't imagine these large chains would continue the practice if they were actually losing money in the scheme. Now, books have the advantage over comics in that they're generall longer and can't be read very quickly. But how many people go to a comic shop to socialize anyway? And with the size of most comic shops, it wouldn't be difficult to monitor/police people use a lounge area to ensure that it wasn't be over-used as a library.

What about hunting down back issues? I know places like eBay have been a huge hit to comic shops' back issue selections, but I'm certain that there's still people who are looking to pick up the odd issue that they just can't seem to find. How about putting a sign up that says, "Can't find what you're looking for? Ask us. If we don't have it, we'll order it for you." The re-order process, to my understanding, isn't quite as simple as it is for chain bookstores, but comic shops also have a little more flexibility in that they have multiple avenues to pursue in searching for back issues. They can trade with other shops, or just keep an eye on some of the online locations. You won't find those capabilities at a major chain bookstore, I'm sure.

Now, granted, the chain bookstores have some serious cash flow advantages over your average comic shop owner. But I think they've also done some research that a comic shop owner can capitalize on and use to their advantage. How cool would it be to see shops that looked "professional" and didn't look like somebody just decided it would be cool to sell comics?

As you may have noticed, I only have a handful of external links along the right side of my page here. The links in question are all to comic-related projects of which I'm an active participant.

FFPlaza, as you may know, is my original Fantastic Four web site, which has been running for almost a decade now. The MCP, which I mentioned earlier in this blog, is a site started by Russ Chappell to put every Marvel comic book story in chronological order as the characters would have experienced them. I'm a member of the Board of Directors there.

The last one is Two Morrows Publishing. They're the guys who put out some excellent publications like Jack Kirby Collector, Alter Ego, and Back Issue. My contributions aren't as blatantly obvious as the other two, but I thought I'd take a moment to plug Jack Kirby Collector, for which I've been writing a column called "Incidental Iconography" for a couple years now. The next issue is due out in a week or two, and it should contain my examination of how Jack developed Devil Dinosaur. There's a lot there, surprisingly, given that it's basically just a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Anyway, I always enjoy reading JKC because all of the contributors provide some great pieces. I'm always learning something in every issue, and I hope my meager column helps contribute that for others. Keep an eye out for it -- the next issue is slated for a March 15 release, I believe.

One of the books on my pull list is Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly's Local, published by Oni Press. The book is a series of self-contained stories about... well, people. Each issue features a vinette and shows the reader a small slice of life. The stories are unrelated and unconnected to one another. They are tied together by the appearance of the character Megan, but she's relatively incidental to the overall book. Each story is its own, and remains largely unconnected to the others. Issue three was about a small band that broke up and how they tried to move on with their lives after the breakup, but issue four is about two brothers who attempt to resolve some long-standing family issues.

I learned about Local through Neil Gorman's Comicology podcast. (Thanks, Neil!) He was really enthused by Brian Wood's writing, and I have to say that I understand why. I picked up Local #1 shortly after it came out, and was impressed enough to look for #2. By the time #3 hit the stands, I was actively looking for anything with Wood's name on it. Sure enough, I caught Supermarket #1 when it came out a couple weeks ago, and was summarily impressed.

Wood definitely has a talent for bringing a reader into a story. With each issue of Local, he has to introduce entirely new characters, put them into some compelling situation, get the audience to care/identify with the characters, and resolve whatever conflicts are at the heart of the story all within 24 pages. Let me say that I was never a big fan of the traditional short story because I had never seen anyone who could pull it off well. Everything I saw was cohesive enough and did tell a solid story, but I never could connect with the characters enough to care. Local is the first set of short stories that I've been able to do that with, and Wood's the only writer that's had that impact on me at all, not to mention that he's done that four months in a row now.

I'll say that I certainly enjoy Ryan Kelly's artwork as well. He does a solid job of storytelling (a key point that not nearly enough comic book artists get) and has an amazing consistency of character design. Each character retains the same look throughout the issue, regardless of the angle, lighting or expression. That's especially difficult with something like #4, where the antagonist is about as non-descript of a character as you could get -- a white guy in a suit. Yet, throughout the issue, it's clear that we're always looking at THE SAME white guy in a suit. Whether or not you appreciate Kelly's artistic style (which I do) you certainly can't overstate his talents as a comic artist.

So my item for the day is just too suggest looking for Local at your local comic shop. Doesn't matter what issue you get -- they're all good and you can jump into the story at any time. They're all prime examples of why I like comics as a medium more than anything else.

When I was kid, I read voraciously. I didn't have many close friends, so I spent a lot of time in my room. On the bed. Reading. Alone. I spent a lot of time there, so a lot of my knowledge of comic stories came from re-reading the same comics over and over.

I also remember that my father was always reading three books simultaneously. He kept one by his chair in the family room, one in his briefcase, and one in the car. That way, he always had reading material on hand if he found a few spare moments. But what I found more interesting was that he always had a stack of books and comic books that he hadn't read yet. Despite the fact that he read whenever he could, he was always several books and usually a few dozen comic books behind. If he bought something new, it would take him several months, sometimes years before he got around to starting it. And I was always amazed that he continued to buy books even though he could afford the time to read them.

So here I am, a decade or two later, and I have a book in my work bag, two in my nightstand, and a couple of piles of other books that I haven't started yet. The comics I bought on Wednesday remain largely unread, the complete collection of Amazing Spider-Man on CD-ROM has been looked at maybe twice, and I've got nearly 100 Timely superhero books on microfiche that I haven't touched in the year and a half that I've had them.

The only question I have is whether I miss having the time to read them, or having the lack of responsibility to have the time to read them. I suspect the latter, but the counter-arguement quickly comes that if I didn't have that level of responsibility, I wouldn't be able to afford to buy the comics that I currently don't have time to read.

Is there a well-paying job that lets me just read comics all day?

In our household, The Wife* controls the finances. She pays all the bills and makes sure the checkbook doesn't bounce and all that fun stuff. The down side to that, for me, is that my personal comic book budget isn't controlled by me.

I am allotted twenty dollars per week to spend at the comic book shop, including taxes. I'm entitled to buy whatever I want at that shop -- comics, trade paperbacks, action figures, whatever -- so long as it doesn't exceed twenty dollars in any given week. So, like most other collectors, I have to make constant determinations about what comics to buy and what comics to pass over.

I tend to collect around $90 in new comics every month. Which means that I don't have very much cash for back issues, action figures, trade paperbacks and the like. Today, I was in the shop and picked up the new books that I was looking for: Books of Doom #4, Local #4, Aquaman #40, and Gødland #8. At $2.99 each, that only came up to $11.96, so I figured I had some room to try something else.

Well, I noticed that the second issue of Next Wave had just come out. I had heard good things about the first issue, and I do like Stuart Immonen's work, so I grabbed #2. I figured that I'll give it a try if I could pick up a copy of #1 as well. So, I started flipping through the back issue bins...

"Hey, here's a copy of Marvel Nemesis: The Imperfects #6! I've been looking for that."

"Hey, here's a copy of Marvel Tales #26 for only two bucks! That's been on my want list for a while now."

"Hey, cool! Next Wave #1. I'm all set."

So then I started adding up what I had in my hand. Another $2.99 for Next Wave #2, $3.25 each for the Imperfects #6 and Next Wave #1 (my shop adds an extra quarter to recent back issues because of the bagging and boarding they do) and $2.00 for Marvel Tales... that comes to $23.45 before tax. Twenty cents more than I can afford even if I pass on one of the books, since the tax would bump me back over $20.00 again. So I have to eliminate two books from my hand.

Aquaman? No, that was the last copy. Same with Gødland. There were two copies of Local, but indie books are tough to get if you miss them the first time. Books of Doom? No, I'll need to post the issue information on my Fantastic Four web site. I can't pass up on Marvel Tales either. Two bucks, and I've been passively looking for it for a while? I'm not going to see a deal like that any time again soon.

That means that I have to decide among two issues of Next Wave and the final issue of Imperfects. Next Wave #2 was new this week, so they'll probably still have a few issues left next week. There were three copies of Imperfects #6, and it really wasn't that good of a book in the first place. Since I was only getting it to complete the series, I put it back and kept Next Wave #1. If I like the book, I can probably pick up #2 next week or maybe the week after and be completely caught up. If I don't like the book, I can grab Imperfects instead.

I figure that's about as close to a win-win situation as I'm going to get here. But it's frustrating having to go through that every week. I tried buying a trade paperback once because it was only twelve dollars. But that meant I had to spend the next month or so trying to play catch-up with my new issues.

It'd be easy to slide into a "comics are too expensive" diatribe, or a rant about the growing gulf between upper and lower classes (indeed, I was a whole paragraph into that rant before I saw where it was going and deleted it) but what first prompted me to write about this dilemma is the notion of an individual making their own purchasing choices and what criteria they use in making their decisions. I try to be logical in my purchases of even the most frivolous items, but what might've prompted the next person to put back Aquaman or Local or whatever? How many other people would've made the same type of decision path that I did? Food for thought.

* Side Note: I use "The Wife" as a title of respect, hence the capital letters. I don't see it any differently than people using "The President" or "The Queen." As far as I'm concerned, there's only one woman worthy of the title "wife" so it deserves a definite article and capital letters.