Comic-Book Movies

With many ideas from a long conversation with a friend.

Conversation started when I noted I’d seen a fly‐poster for MUBI. My friend said he had not done well by MUBI recently—he has a subscription—but had watched Dick Tracey, the film from the 1980’s. The subject moved in from there.

Better mark territory. The English have talked about Comic Strips since the 1920’s. These are mostly known through newspapers, their daily strip cartoons. Before that the English had a tradition of comic cards back through the Industrial Revolution. But, sweeping back through the posts, we were not talking about that. We included the serious stuff, and the arty stuff. The English and the Americans sell this as ‘Graphic Novels’. That’s a clunky couple of words and doesn’t cover what we were getting at. I prefer, and it would fence where we were, the French «Bande Dessinée». The English ‘Strip Cartoon’ will do, long as you get we are not talking Comics, we are talking the artform of storytelling by drawing cartoon in a linear sequence.

My friend mentioned he had watched Dick Tracey with a friend, and his friend had commented that, “…near‐enough the same approach worked for Sin City in ’05 but Tracey in ’90 considered some kind of mad folly”. Which wandered into the questions, what are these things, and what do we think of them?

‘Comic book’ movies are big with film executives right now. Possibly because the idea of ‘Comic book movie’ is big with the people—Avengers Endgame is, time of writing 2020, the biggest selling movie ever. But we were into a narrower thing. As my friend posted,

It’d interesting to do a side‐by‐side comparison of some representative shots, given that Frank Miller [author of the strip cartoon ‘Sin City’] got a co‐directing credit because Rodriguez [Robert Rodriguez, director of the film ‘Sin City’] claimed all he was doing was framing up shots to look like Miller’s panels.

You’ll need to go on the web for that, as the material is copyright. But yeah, the static shots are framed face‐close, a lot of work has cone into imitating one/two source lighting and, as per the comic, textures are dragged from the setwork.

Right, we are talking now about films framed to look like strip‐cartoons. There’s always been some cross‐over, as some of the same techniques apply. A film that has no movement in the frame, and some do not, is a kinda real‐time strip cartoon (though not ‘live’, films are a playback of a recording). Positioning and the way objects are used to signal other information share the same language, and often the same idioms. This I guess is clearer in animation, which is indeed real‐time playback of a strip‐cartoon. Still, there are differences. If we get down to the media, strip cartoons can pull tricks like enlarging or breaking the frame, which film cannot do. And strip cartoons can pull tricks with colour and ink that a film must work hard to achieve. It’s notable that only the most outside of experimental animation tries on wire‐frames—a strip‐cartoon stock—or the use of black, where ink is king. Partly, I guess, these effects are expensive, partly it is difficult to do, partly waving a camera about is easier, partly those kind of effects are less effective in the media of film, partly it goes against both the realistic capture and operatic overdrive of most film production and audience expectation.

And the media of film has it’s own advantages. Real‐time gives every kind of camera movement—zooms, pans, and so on. And a soundtrack, and soundtrack dislocations. And fades, double exposures, other image processing.

But saying ‘image processing’ pushes us into another difference between the media. Films tend to be of stage‐sets containing live actors. Strip‐cartoons tend to be pen‐and‐ink‐and‐color. There is nothing to stop a strip cartoon being a sequence of camera stills—in one newspaper a confessional strip‐cartoon is. But it’s rare, and for a strip cartoon I guess expensive (unless you want to include the photo sequences in some pornographic magazines? Or some ‘Homes and Gardens’ type ‘house visits’? They qualify). Also, strip cartoons tend to be realistic (I’m not going to explain this here—they are, ok) drawings framed in techniques derived from the art‐movement Expressionism. Film tends to be staged sets. In this case—the material—I can believe that the different media use different content because that kind of content is cheaper and slightly more in tune with the media.

Then, there are differences in the approach to positioning. For sure, in a film the left‐right distinction gets blurred, as the eye that looks from a viewing seat is not travelling across a page, but scanning a screen side to side. And staged film seems to shoot from a greater distance than cartoons. That gets lost in animation, so seems to be a stage affair. My guess is watchers of staged film want to see more round the objects, so they can get the drift. Strip‐cartoons can pack more into the frame, with a surer guarantee their readers will look at it.

Anyway up, if you or anybody tries to frame a movie like a strip cartoon, they’re heading off‐beat. And if they want to cast light like a strip‐cartoon, and color like a strip‐cartoon, they’re heading off further. After all, both Dick Tracey and Sin City are not using pen and ink. Nor are they animation. They’re using staged action.

My friend wanted to know how far should you go with a shunt of strip‐cartoon into staged‐film? How far do you direct the actors? Here’s a case: the director Stanley Kubrick asked the actor Jack Nicholson to, essentially, cartoon‐up his performance in the film The Shining (not a strip‐cartoon source, but relevant here). Ever since, Mr. Nicholson has been associated with the “Here’s Johnny!” effect he pulled off. But is this what film directors want from strip‐cartoons? You want Jim Carey and Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber?

Short of seeing the Pow! Whoosh! and all the rest of it, just how larger than life (or outright unhinged) does the setting make it appropriate to go?

Humm. There is a question.

As well as ‘appropriate’, we have to ask if film directors/producers know what they are up to. See, ‘POW!’ is a strip‐cartoon convention. And the writers, colourists, penmen, book designers, agents… they mean it, brother, they really mean it. It’s a staple of (male) pulp fiction. Blam! Strip cartoons, like hand‐made film animations, are usually made by obsessives with time on their hands and not a lot to do besides fantasize and/or obsess. But films are not. Films, I posted, are made by privileged white guys (maybe a gloss nowadays, others get their crack, but anyway…). To people like that, ‘POW!’ is a ‘pop’ feature. It means little to them as people, and they never can mean it. The best they can manage is to work camp. The real pulp film would have a stomach‐turning ‘CrunCH!’ sound, not a visual ‘POW!’.

As we explored films we [don’t] like, and what others think of them, this sociology rose in more subtle ways. One in the grounds of story. Big films have hack endings, all predictable and dumb (you thought Dumb and Dumber was about disability? Naw, it’s a subtle allegory about the day‐to‐day working procedure of film executives). As it happens these endings are worse by far than much opera, which is going some but, believe me, it’s true. The strip‐cartoon, is not like that. Especially the newspaper‐syndicated type is essentially open‐ended. It’s ‘the ongoing adventures of…’ which has became refined into ‘The amusing incident which happened this morning’. The more arty one‐off bande‐dessinée have dropped the pulp fiction cliffhangers and headed for the craft of short stories. This is possibly in part because of the small‐scale production, and possibly in part a small audience who will mostly appreciate the skill, or at least not demand their money back. But the story‐telling of executive‐desk feature film pulverises story, and with strip cartoon that’s a big loss—the sweep of the kick.

And the gap in society between the media runs deep. If your aim is to shunt something that was hot for you, a lot of good can come of that. But if you’re trying to get down with the public, I suggest you back out and work your own stuff (I’ve known a bunch of film students). Talking Dick Tracey, I guess a square‐jaw hero had a place in the 1980’s, but that was Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, or Michael J Fox …you know them, the quirky square‐jaw crew. Whereas the Sin City sleaze of a dead‐beat city, especially with interlocking stories, may have a place.

Anyhow, a couple of thoughts step out. First up, well now… One of the big deals is Marvel Studios. Marvel have since the 1920’s produced comic‐strips of superhero characters, one of a big two with D.C. Comics. As superheros came and faded, Marvel have gone up and down and, for a year in 1997, were bankrupt. Over the years they put out a couple of films, and a couple of others were based on their characters. And a couple of these films were big hits and a couple were duds. Remember 1997 Men In Black, and 2002 Spiderman? But the key was 2008 Iron Man. Funded by the company and filmed part‐improvised, with some realism worked into the visuals, a finale that is flat‐out boring, but an unusually strong character hook in that the main character thinks again about his ways, Iron Man was a massive hit. And from then on films based on Marvel characters, made by the studio, have been released regularly and made tons of cash. And not one of them is a comic‐book film, as we have been talking about. Not in story, framing, or action. No, sorry, one was—Spiderman was the real deal. I’ll mention that down a bit.

Really we should say what these films are. They are superhero films which happen to be based in old comic‐book characters. And there are more films like this, from source material from more recent times. Strip‐cartoon books that have lead to notable films include Road To Perdition and A History Of Violence. Neither have much stress on shunting visuals, what they borrow from the sources is the storyline‐with‐dashes‐of‐mythology. Both are good films.

Second, the successes are not what we think they are. Here’s our tapped‐on‐a‐bus list as they rose, Note something creeping in here,

Sin City (2005)

“…frame like Frank Miller”

Who Framed Rodger Rabbit? (1998)

An original script about an ‘outlier community’ (cartoon people!)

Batman Returns (1992)

“It has the script”

Dark City (1998)

”Wanted to see it for years!”. Original script

Spiderman (2002)

“…visuals rock”

The Mask (1994)

How “cartoon/comic logic and physics bend and break things in the real world”

Tintin (the animated series) (1991‐1992)

“…adds film style to legendary graphics. …like swing moves and fades”

Hot Fuzz (2007)

“That scene at the end!”

Throwing in a couple from subsequent thinking,

Robocop (1987)

Not even a comic‐book movie as source, it was made like a comic

X‐Men (2000)

Only superhero movie with personal stakes in the drama

Yep. Only two/three of them are rooted in paper originals (we’re discounting Batman Returns as having little to do with the comic books). And X‐Men came in for some criticism for not being like a comic. A friend of mine said,

What I’d say is he’s [The ‘director, Bryan Singer] not that good at filming action. Though he’s made a lot of the characters, it’s Wolverine!

The others are comic‐like confections. Two of them, Who Framed Rodger Rabbit? and The Mask, are not in a strip‐cartoon style, they use techniques from animated film. And Tintin is worth noting. It’s an animation, so naturally closer to the working procedure of a strip‐cartoon. As an example it will do as a shoo‐in for films like Persepolis, another animation based on strip cartoons.

Our first thought: animations of strip cartoon are likely to be good. This is not only Tintin, further proof is the recent Dan Dare, and others. This also applies to the arty ones like Persepolis. Why is a different question. Perhaps it’s because animation offers opportunity for the original author to be involved— that’s true of Sin City and Perspolis. And for Tintin, The Snowman, and Dan Dare, the production had literate fans on board. Perhaps the animators share the same interests as comic‐book authors? Perhaps the lower cost and extreme time consumption of animation moves the process closer to source? So perhaps because the media are closer. Perhaps because animations are often commissioned as series, which can salvage a representation of story—though the Snowman and Persopolis are good one‐off features. Whatever the reason(s), far as we are concerned, animated adaptions are surprisingly reliable.

And that is unlike the shape …of a conclusion on staged‐film adaptions of strip‐cartoon material,

…the only good ‘comic Book’ movies [staged, not animated] are the ones that de/reconstruct the media?

Yes. Or, a rule of thumb,

…efforts to be like cartoons are way better than cartoon adaptions.

There’s a thought for you. Consider the question my friend posted,

…and just which stylistic elements from the comic/graphic novel do you decide to dispense with, and which to keep? And to what overall effect?

I’d suggest trashing the visuals and story, because most stage‐film shunts do, leaves you with nothing.

So animated versions of strip‐cartoon material are reliable and often good. But staged‐action movies of strip‐cartoon material often fail. Some of them are legends, though I can’t vouch for them personally—Popeye, Howard The Duck, Blueberry, Garfield. We’re talking now about Dick Tracey, which seemed pointless and unengaged, or Judge Dredd, which had good things in it—wasted. And the list goes on, The Flintstones (which could have been The Simpsons, right?). Movies based in strip‐cartoon material only get good when they do not engage with the source at all in terms of framing, story, visuals. You’ll get the usual bad ending—multiple henchmen leading to a multi‐stage nemesis‐battle—but at least there will be something to it cf. X‐Men and Ironman. Which leaves us with movies that use strip‐cartoon techniques, but are not based in comic‐book sources. They borrow the techniques and so grapple with what they are doing. And all of a sudden these are involving, even good. A Jesters Tale, Robocop, Delicatessen, Dark City, The Matrix, The Triplets of Belleville, Hot Fuzz. And finally, if you want to define things the other way, the best films made from strip‐cartoons are not like their sources at all. Except Spiderman (Sam Raimi, 2002). There’s always Spiderman.