Comics and Culture Blog

Found this blog “ComicsandCulture.com” that discusses comic books and the American culture.

Books Analyzing Comic

I found all of these books in libraries. Most are out of print and extremely expensive, so although some are available for sale, I’d check the library first:

• Reynolds, Richard. Superheroes: A Modern Mythology. Great Britain: BPCC Hazells Ltd, 1992. (Buy it here) 
• Magnussen, Anne, and Hans-Christian Christiansen, eds. Comics & Culture: Analytical and Theoretical Approaches to Comics. Denmark: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2000. (Buy it here)
   
• Bongco, Mila. Reading Comics: Language, Culture, and the Concept of the Superhero in Comic Books. New York NY: Garland Publishing Inc., 2000. (Buy it here) (Google Book Preview)
   
• McAllister, Matthew P., and Edward H. Sewell, Jr., and Ian Gordon. Comics & Ideology. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2001. (Buy it here)
   
• Beaty, Bart. Unpopular Culture: Transforming the European Comic Book in the 1990s. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2007. (Buy it here)
   
• Barbieri, Daniele. I Linguaggi Del Fumetto. Milano: Gruppo Editoriale Fabbri, 1991. (Buy it here)

Comics in the Classroom

eMINTS contains a page (here) linking to various resources for comic book use in the classroom. Notable links are:

• Graphic Novels for Multiple Literacies
• TeachingComics.org
• Comics In Education

Project Muse

For anyone with access to Project Muse, it is an excellent resource for finding analytical papers on the superhero genre. Students may be provided with access by their University. Otherwise, it is subscription based. Links below:

• Project Muse Homepage
• Project Muse “About” Page

Io9 Discusses Superheroes and War Films

Io9 published an article entitled “Have War Movies Become Superhero Flicks?“, which contemplates whether the Superhero film genre has become the War film genre of today. It proposes that recent Superhero films (such as “Wolverine”, “Watchmen”, “Incredible Hulk”, and “Iron Man”) have dealt with the themes War films used to deal with, while War films have evolved into mostly historical pieces. It’s an interesting read.

Movie Review Link — “Star Trek”

Although not directly related to Superheroes, I figured a “Star Trek” review might nonetheless appeal to comic book readers. Since it isn’t technically a comic, I won’t reproduce my review here, but simply link to it: http://gaudini.wordpress.com/2009/05/09/star-trek-gives-new-take/ . Enjoy.

OPINION – Wolverine is a Great, Big Pile of Steaming, Stagnant Cliché

Warning — some spoilers ahead.

When I first heard the announcement that a Wolverine origins film was in production, my response was a resounding “eh”. At the time, I had thought that Wolverine’s origins had been sufficiently explained in the excellent “X2: X-Men United” (and, honestly, after watching “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”, I stand by this opinion). That being said, my hopes for this film were greatly raised after viewing the first trailer — and subsequently plummeted back to their initial low once the workprint leaked and poor word of mouth began spreading across the internet. But, I vowed to see “Wolverine” in theaters and make up my own mind about it. I have fulfilled this vow, and thus feel confident in my assessment that Wolverine is, you guessed it, a great big pile of steaming, stagnant cliché. 

Now let me just say this up front — I love action films. Sometimes there can be nothing greater than watching one guy take on a bunch of woefully inept cronies, pulling off astounding acrobatics in midair while destroying a few miles’ worth of public and private property. It’s just fun. Yet, the joy from most action films I watch is that they know what they are and they deliver something fresh and memorable in a “holy crap do you remember when that dude did that thing in that movie” kind of way. “Wolverine” doesn’t seem to know what it is (or else, it tries too hard to be something it is not) and it does not deliver any new, imaginative action sequences. Rather, it seems to be just more of the same. So Agent Zero can shoot people from a couple of miles away? Seen it. So Deadpool can cut bullets in half in midair? Who cares? So Wolverine is walking toward the screen in slow motion while something explodes behind him? Really? Throughout the film, there are three fight scenes between Wolverine and his half-brother turned arch-nemesis Sabertooth — three fight scenes that deliver basically the same exact thing. Logan and Victor look at each other (insert some kind of “clever” line), charge at each other, then fight for much too long in hand-to-hand combat, stabbing each other and destroying everything around them.

Jaded fight scenes aside, there is little time spent giving depth to any of the characters in the film, which would normally be fine for a typical action film if it wasn’t for the fact that “Wolverine” obviously intends for the audience to be invested in these characters. The creative team attempts to portray the pain that is Wolverine’s woeful life. They fail in that they forget to give us any reason to care about Wolverine or his relationships with those around him. The death of Wolverine’s father (and also his biological father) happens literally a minute after these characters have been introduced. The audience knows only the most superficial knowledge about them, their situations, and their relationships — and subsequently no one cares when little kiddo Wolverine offs the man he didn’t know was his biological father with a bone claw to the gut. Likewise, the character of Victor Creed is throw at us as this blood-thirsty killer, with only a brief opening montage and a couple complaints from Wolverine to serve as any indication of change in Creed’s character (again, only superficial). We are not shown Victor’s evolution. Rather, we are shown the end product (a killing machine), and then given a “oh, by the way, he used to be a good guy, but now he’s just a big jerk” explanation. Since we never really get to see Wolverine and Sabertooth develop as brothers, their angsty fights mean nothing more than just another succession of punches. Wolverine’s girlfriend Kayla is introduced after a “Six Years Later” tag appears on the screen. As with Creed, we are given no time to see Wolverine and Kayla’s relationship develop. We are simply throw into the action and forced to accept that they are oh so happy living together in the mountains of Canada. (SPOILERS AHEAD) Then bam! She dies and the audience doesn’t care because no one has much invested in this relationship at all. Not only that, but when she returns at the end of the film in one of those clichéd “I’m working with the bad guys, but I’m only doing it because they’re threatening to hurt someone I love” scenarios that films seem to use to write themselves out of a hard spot, there is still no reason to care about her or her betrayal at all. Then she dies again (for real this time), and once more her death does not impact me in the least. I realize that this is an action film but, really, that is no excuse. If an action film wants to give characterizations (and “Wolverine” seems to have this desperate desire to do so) then they can. Take “Casino Royale”, for example. Bond is given a little bit of depth, and we see the development of his relationship with Vester so that I actually care when she drowns herself after betraying him. (SPOILERS END)

Beyond the lack of characterizations, there also seems to be a conscious effort to make “Wolverine” epic, but it’s continually undermined at every turn by the use of countless epic film clichés. As mentioned, there’s shots like the obligatory “walk away calmly from an explosion” shot. Then there’s the mandatory metaphoric story that’s sure to have some deeper meaning later. When Kayla tells Logan a story about a wolverine, it is hard not to groan. Also featured is the always useful “tie the plot into some real-life occurrence” device. Does the Three Mile Island catastrophe really need to be tied into Wolverine’s origin story, or does the reference simply cheapen the film by reminding the viewer they are watching a movie?

Some parts of the film are just plain silly. Wolverine actually boxes with the Blob — that’s right, he puts on red boxing gloves and they duke it out. Name explanations are forced upon the film in an offhanded and inorganic manner. Wolverine gets his from the corny, hit-yourself-over-the-head-with-metaphor story Kayla tells.  The Blob mishears Wolverine when he calls him “Bub.” And, maybe the worst of all, Deadpool is named from a bunch of genes thrown together into a ‘pool’, which was used to make him a killing machine. Can you say ‘contrived’? Which brings me to the point of Deadpool and what utter nonsense his character is at the end of this film. As you may have gathered from the explanation concerning his name, Deadpool has been created from a bunch of mutant genes all put into one guy. That’s right, one of the ‘bad guys’ (named Stryker), has rounded up a bunch of mutants, takes their powers, and gives them to Deadpool. I’ll say this again just so that you can hear how utterly ridiculous this is: Stryker takes the powers of other mutants and gives them Deadpool. I know this is a movie, but the creative team couldn’t do better than that? Next comes the obvious problem of how Wolverine doesn’t remember any of this in the three subsequent films. Enter a deus-ex machina device! Wolverine’s body is made of an adamantium skeleton, right? Therefore, it is only logical that an adamantium bullet should completely erase his memory! It makes perfect sense, except for the part where it doesn’t. At all. It feels as if it has been thrown in because the writers got too lazy to think up something a bit less illogical. And the scene where the idea of this magical amnesia-inducing adamantium bullet is introduced reeks of “this scene is only here to provide exposition concerning a plot device”.

Finally, there’s the issue that some characters act just plain stupid, for no reason other than to further the plot. Why does Gambit leap in to fight Wolverine (who, it should be noted, is about to kill the guy that previously threw Gambit into a mutant prison), only to immediately cease fighting and trust Wolverine once Sabertooth has made it safely away? Why would Stryker — who knows full well Wolverine’s erratic nature — spend a couple billion making Wolverine indestructible if he was going to give up on him so easily? Oops, he’s running away, let’s just try to kill him. How about you track him down and try to talk some sense into him first before trying to blow him to smithereens. At least make it look like you care about the piles of taxpayers’ dollars you’ve just wasted making a man unkillable. And, too, if you’ve worked with Wolverine and know how fickle he is, why not have a backup plan on how to take him out in the inevitable event that things do not go according to your plan? Also, why does every single mutant in this film have amazing acrobatic abilities? Last time their physical capabilities were not enhanced unless it was directly related to their mutation. And yet, everyone seems to be uber-agile, bouncing off the walls.

At least some of the acting was enjoyable, not counting the sub-par Will. I. Am as John Wraith. Watching Hugh Jackman once more don the persona of Wolverine was, admittedly enjoyable. It was everything else that made the film uninteresting and bland. Basically, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” takes everything potentially interesting about the X-Men and presents it as typical, clichéd action fare that tries (and fails) to be something else entirely.

OPINION — A Movie Review That Will Not Contain a Play on the Phrase: “Who Watches the Watchmen”

I deliberated on whether to include a section on superhero movie reviews, and decided that it would be appropriate to post them, as long as the reviews were labeled as such. What follows is a review (or, rather, a rant) I wrote shortly after seeing the film adaptation of “Watchmen”. Be warned, it is mostly negative.

————————

Sometimes its the subtle things that separate a mediocre movie from an outstanding work of film. Sometimes its the huge, blatant errors that do so. And sometimes, as with Watchmen, both are culprit.

I should probably confess before I delve into the meat of this review that I am two things first and foremost — a student of film and a lover of comics (and, of course, I love Alan Moore’s post-modernist deconstruction of the superhero genre, “Watchmen”). I’m telling you this up front, so don’t comment saying “You’re just comparing it to the comic”. I sure am, that’s why I told you this up front. Adaptations are always going to be compared to their source material — and rightly so! The source is provides the basic structure of the story, including plot, characters, and themes. Also, if you’ve never read the comic, then I’d expect you’d like it more than me, or if you read the comic after you’ll probably be grateful that the film showed you the way to the comic. But the thing is, aside from “Watchmen” being a disappointing adaptation, I didn’t really think it was much good as a film, either. Anyway, I digress.

First things first, did you notice Alan Moore’s name in the credits? I’d venture a guess and say ‘no’, unless you’re imagining things. There’s a reason for that — Alan Moore, a British comic book writer who insisted on having his name removed from the film completely and refused to accept any money he might have made off the film’s success, vehemently holds the conviction that “Watchmen” is unfilmable. As he infamously told Terry Gilliam when Gilliam (at the time, attached to direct a “Watchmen” film) asked Moore how he would adapt “Watchmen” for the screen: ”Well actually, Terry, if anybody asked me, I would have said, ‘I wouldn’t.” (http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/07/17/creator-qa-alan-moore-3/) So that’s the author of “Watchmen’s” opinion. Admittedly, he is a bit eccentric, and seems to hate Hollywood on a whole, so it makes sense he would not be too enthused when they get their hands on his work. But let’s move on, shall we? If you’d like to read more on what Alan Moore (author of such comics as “V For Vendetta”, “From Hell”, and “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” — all vastly different from their respective film adaptations) thinks of the films made from his movies, google and wikipedia are your friends.

One of the more admirable aspects of the “Watchmen” film is how faithful the director Zack Snyder tried to keep the film to its source material. Almost every scene or line was lifted straight from the comic itself. However, it does this its own detriment. Part of the magic of “Watchmen” was how it was a commentary on superhero comics of the time: it aimed to further the genre as a whole (even if the comics industry itself missed the point entirely and took a few steps back in their attempt to move forward,). The superhero genre is at a different point now than it was when “Watchmen” came out in the 80s, and it is only natural that the aim of a “Watchmen” film should be modified accordingly. Instead, it seeks to recreate a change that already took place, and in doing so missed the point itself.

After “Watchmen” came out, the major publishers began to make their comics full of ‘grim and gritty’ violence in response to “Watchmen’s” popularity. Yet, “Watchmen” was never about the ‘grim and gritty’ or the blood. The film, too, seemed to make this mistake. The bloodiness of the story has been amped up to unbearable levels, as seems to be Zack Snyder’s modus operandi (first in 300, now in this). The story is already a dark one due to its subject material, the constant barrage of limb loss and blood sprays only serve to obscure the true themes and merit of the story in moments of “Dude, wasn’t that sweet” that seemed to me more typical of ‘B Grade’ action films. Honestly, have audiences become so numb that a slit throat is no longer horrifying, that we must see a man have his arms sawed off instead? Or the subtle horror of seeing a single panel of a man handcuffed in a burning building looking at the saw left him to him as his only way out, transformed into the more blatant horror of someone cleaving his head in half multiple times.

For every one person that dies in the comic, ten must die in the film, in a very stylized manner — and it usually makes little to no sense. What sense does it make for a would-be assassin to try and kill everyone around his target before killing his target, when he knows the man he’s been hired to kill is one of the most powerful and agile men in the world? Yeah, maybe the guy was a horrible shot, or maybe the creative staff just wanted to make up for the fact that “Watchmen” is not a superheroic action film by adding in gratuitous sequences of people dying in a myriad of different ways. Now I love crazy testosterone-ridden sequences as much as the next guy, but not in a film that is attempting to be intellectually stimulating. Yeah, I was pumped up after seeing “300″ for the first time, but it was never trying to be something more than a film in which a bunch of guys fight a bunch of other guys. “300″ was a faithful adaptation of a xenophobic, mediocre comic that had no real thematic significance or merit. And because of this, when audiences were given a xenophobic, mediocre movie that had no real thematic significance or merit, it was ok (well, except for the xenophobia). But you get the point. Don’t masquerade a film you’re marketing as “The Most Celebrated Graphic Novel Of All Time” as an action film full of “Did you see that!” moments. By shifting to a greater focus on these stylized fight sequences, you allow people to all but ignore the underlying messages that made “Watchmen” unique in the first place. The comic is one in a million. The movie is one of a million.

Two victims of this bloody intent are Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. Although both characters see Rorschach as dangerously unhinged and his use of lethal force as unacceptable, they seem to have no problem killing a gang of punks who assault them in an alley in a variety of painful ways. Does anyone else see something out of character in this? Especially later in the film when Silk Spectre is arguing with superpowered Dr. Manhatten that human life does have value.

(SPOILERS FOLLOW)
Ozymandias, too, is undermined as a character. The whole point of blurring the line between hero and villain is just that — blurring the line. But Ozymandias speaks his lines with such a tone of mania that there is never any doubt that he is a bad guy. Part of the horror of Ozymandias is that he’s supposed to be this calm, connected guy. Smartest guy on the planet, sure, but he’s likable and has depth — which makes when he murders thousands of people all the more horrifying. The film, however, plays him as pompous right from the get-go, in what I suppose is an attempt to distance him emotionally from the viewer, as if the executives and creative team wanted to establish some kind of moral judgment while also retaining the moral ambiguity ofthe story.

Since I’ve already labeled this section as Spoilery, I’ll move onto my next subject — the ending. As you may have gathered, the ending of the comic is different from that of the movie. And you know what? That works perfectly. I felt that the film’s ending played out very well. And you know why? Because the creative team realized that Ozymandias staging an invasion of Earth by giant squid monsters in order to get the world to band together works fine in a comic… but does not work on film. My gripe here is that they didn’t do this with the rest of the film. The ending was a bright little point of self-realization on the film’s part, as it seeks to find its own identity. “V For Vendetta”, as vastly different as it was from the comic it was based on, worked for me. Because it wasn’t trying to be exactly the comic, but on screen. It took its time and found its own identity as a film, and once it found that identity it worked out its own themes. Its an adaptation. “Watchmen” is never given the time or the space to find its own identity as a film, it tries to be a comic. Comics and movies are different media, and work accordingly.
(SPOILERS END)

Now, I’ve heard a lot of praise of “Watchmen” from those around me. I realize I’m being harsh because I’m comparing it to its vastly superior source material, but for me “Watchmen” is typical action fare, complete with subpar acting (with a few exceptions, like Rorschach). And the film spent so much time attempting to cram as much as it could from the comic into the film, I found myself wondering if audiences who hadn’t read the comic would even care about what happened to any of these characters, with maybe the exception of Rorschach, just because everything thinks he’s “cool”. It includes so many little hints at the comic that are all but irrelevant to the screen adaptation of the story — such when Comedian says to Hooded Justice: “I know what gets you hot.” Hooded Justice’s possible homosexuality is a point in the comic, but is only a throwaway line for fanboys in the film (Hooded Justice is in a total of one scene), most likely leaving the non-comic audience either scratching their heads or not caring at all.  After viewing the film, I turned to my friend, who had never read the comic. He told me he’d liked the film, and I asked him if the film made him care about any of the characters. He said “Not really.”

So, I’ll just tell you this now — read the comic. It’s everything the movie tries to be, but ten times better. Why would I want to watch something that tries to be the exact same thing as the comic when I could just read the comic instead? If a film adaptation of any source material is going to be made, the first thing the creative should ask itself is “Are we trying to replicate exactly the source for the audience?” If the answer is ‘yes’, then just give up now. Find your film’s own identity and understand that each medium differs drastically from every other medium. Take this into account and then, maybe, watch the movie “Watchmen” as a cautionary tale of what to avoid.

ComicsResearch.org

Came across this site that lists books on comic analysis.

http://www.comicsresearch.org/

Examination of The Comic Book Film

Batman-on-film.com has recently featured a four-part opinion article by Mark Hughes (entitled “Bias and Backlash: A Look at the Anti-Comic Movie Sentiment”) that briefly summarizes the history of comics on film, and offers opinions on the (generally negative) critical reception of the film adaptation of “Watchmen” and also what may be in store for comics in film in the future.

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four