24 October 2006

Guilty pleasures

I expect that I have some Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter fans among my readership, and of those, one or two that may be interested to know that the nice people at Marvel are publishing a comics adaptation.

For folks unfamiliar with the intrepid Ms Blake, she's the star of a series of pulp novels. They're a mix of hardboiled detective story, romance novel, and monster horror, in a way that's surprisingly more witty than goofy. As the series progresses, the prose improves but the mix of tones becomes more awkward. Strongly recommended for folks charmed by the idea, strongly not for civilians.

Usually, adaptations from other media to comics are a waste of time. The only exceptions I can think of off hand is Bill Sienkiewicz' surreal “best of” Moby Dick and Chester Brown's scary Gospel of Matthew.

I've flipped through the first issue of the Anita Blake adaptation, and it really stinks. So you know. Lisa Fortune explains that this is because the style of the art is totally inappropriate to the story.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you are looking for another credible adaptation to comics from another media, check out Ernie Colon's "9/11 Commission Report" done as a graphic novel

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5690970

The medium is surprisingly effective for this type of content.

Ray

Anonymous said...

http://www.slate.com/id/2147309/nav/tap1/

FWIW, Slate published much of this piece online.

Even now, it is difficult to read the first chapter without the fear, anger, and utter sadness and grief coming back in a rush.

Ray