07 Track 7

Unit 12

Comics

Chapter 2

Graphic Novels Come to Life

Page 209

Graphic Novels Come to Life

Superhero movies based on comic books have long been good business for Hollywood. Some of the most successful superhero movies, like The Avengers (2012), The Dark Knight (2008), and Spiderman (2002) have earned upwards of $400 million each at the box office.

The appeal superhero movies is obvious: it bring familiar and well-loved characters to audiences, and these long-running comic series can easily be extended into movie sequels.

Thanks to the success of these movies, more serious comic books such as graphic novels have also been adapted for the big screen.

The term “graphic novel” became popular in the 1980s when people wanted to distinguish between colorful comic books aimed at kids and more complex stories aimed at older, more mature readers.

While classic comic books feature crime-fighting superheroes, graphic novels cover many genres and are frequently about real-life issues.

Ghost World by Daniel Clows, which follows two friends through the summer after their high school graduation, is an early example of a graphic novel that was made into a film.

Another recent graphic novel adaptation is Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, which documents her youth in Iran during and after the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons is a great example of a graphic novel that has been successfully adapted for film.

The only graphic novel to appear in Time magazine’s list of the best 100 books since 1923, Watchmen was also a box office hit, earning more than $180 million around the world.

Director Zack Snyder says movies based on graphic novels appeal to movie audiences because they are deep, vivid stories.

“Watchmen is thick and complicated and violent and political and critical of America,” Snyder says. “It’s huge.”

But taking a graphic novel off the page and on to the screen isn’t as simple as it sounds.

The most challenging part for screenwriters and directors is attempting to make a movie that deviates from the original.

Authors are able to take risks and graphic novels that directors are unable to pull off believably on screen.

For example, Watchmen was considered “unfilmable” by many, including the writer Alan Moore himself, because of the many different plot lines and time frames.

While changes may make the story more appealing to mainstream audiences, fans of the original material are important and unrelenting critics.

Snyder remarked, “The geeks will be on me for changes I make to Watchmen. There are no more fierce fans than geekdom.”

Risks aside, one major appeal of graphic novels from movie studios is that the visual format allows them to “see” what the movie could look like before they approve it.

This can be a great advantage over a traditional script, which requires the reader to imagine the characters and setting. Having a pre-defined style has also led to the creation of some very unique movies.

Two great examples of graphic novels that had their style translated to the screen are Frank Miller’s Sin City and 300.

The film adaptation of Sin City retains the original story’s dark look and feel because the directors − Miller and Robert Rodriguez − shot it in a shadowy black and white style with only certain colors allowed, such as the bright yellow of the main villain.

Turning hand-drawn comic into a live-action film can be tricky, and directors must attempt to create scenes with the same intricate detail as in the graphic novel, often on a tight budget.

For 300, Snyder had to use special color filters and other techniques, such as speeding up or slowing down the action, to help convey the action and bloodied violence of the book.

By Hollywood standards, the $60 million budget that Snyder had to work with isn’t a lot of money, but as such movies continue to wow audiences and make money, production budgets are sure to rise.

Maybe your favorite graphic novel will soon be coming to a screen near you!