Came across this interesting piece of news regarding some of the best indie comics possibly coming to the screen in the near future and I was stoked!
Anyone that follows this blog or listens to our podcasts knows we here love movies and comics. We’ve been living in a golden age of the two medias crossing but I honestly didn’t think I’d see the day we had some of these indie comics get adapted to the screen. I personally LOVE some of these titles and indie comics in general.
I switched over to Image from Marvel (although I still read Marvel comics on occasion) back in the 90’s when many of my favorite writers and artists made the jump. The big difference with Image was the fact that the creators owned their own IP whereas a company like Marvel owns all of the ideas and characters.
Back then I loved comics like Savage Dragon and Spawn, but with time some crazy creative stuff came out of that studio such as the Walking Dead from Robert Kirkman which is obviously quite popular now, but he also writes one of my favorite superhero comics: Invincible. It takes the classic superhero story and stays true to those roots but makes it a more modern story. It’s so damn good!
Nowadays we’ve got some truly incredible offerings such as one of my all time favorites, Saga, which is a crazy story about a SciFi family from opposite sides of the tracks trying to make things work in the midst of an interstellar war. It’s pretty incredible and I can’t recommend it enough. Rumor is that Tessa Thompson (Creed, West World) has expressed interest in the project and she would be a great fit for it, in my opinion.
I could go on and on with titles I love from Image but those are two awesome recommendations. This deal means we could see some of these amazing creators like Brian K. Vaughan, Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick get their best works on screen! Also, quite the payday as it is reported that the payout is in the 8 figure range ($10,000,000+)! That is a massive acquisition and I bet they’re pretty stoked they kept creative control and ownership over their ideas.
Brian K. Vaughan already has Y: The Last Man lined up for FX which is a killer story. The premise is that all males on the planet die suddenly apart from one survivor with all that that entails and what it means to be the only man left on Earth. It’s a really cool and wild story and I can’t wait to see it on TV. And, for my fellow comic nerds, that one is actually published by Vertigo, not Image, so no one skin me alive, please!
This is really exciting stuff as these stories are extremely creative and well written. Unlike comics in say, the Marvel U which are more about building brand and keeping popular characters around, indie comics are more about telling a complete story that has a beginning, middle and end. Artistically I appreciate that as while the characters in the larger comic studios are iconic, amazing creations they exist in stories where there’s really no dramatic tension as you know they are essentially untouchable. They may go through trials and travails but you know that even if they “die” they won’t stay dead. Indie comics give you something a little more mature (at least in regards to the story being put in front of the brand, they can cover wildly immature topics, lol). As I have grown as a comic reader over the years I find myself reading indie comics more and more. Hopefully with these types of deals producing new media, it will introduce more people to the awesome world of comics!
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I… can’t imagine how they would translate Saga into live action. Maaaaaaaaybe HBO could do it, or possibly Netflix? I am skeptical, though.
I know, right?! It’s so crazy but so awesome, too. I sincerely hope it happens but only if it is a high budget, serious effort. It’s such a fantastic story but it’s like, Never Ending Story meets Romeo and Juliet meets Star Wars. It would certainly be a challenge to make but if done correctly that is like, the perfect storm of awesome storytelling and would appeal to such a wide swathe of people. It’s such a good, relatable family driven tale that is dressed up in a science fantasy setting.
I hope this eventually leads to Warren Ellis getting to do film/TV adaptations of some of his creator-owned material with the same sort of freedom and creative control he’s had for Castlevania. Global Frequency or Fell would still make great “emergency of the week” series, or something like Planetary or even (dare I hope?) Transmetropolitan as a complete arc.
Absolutely! I love Warren Ellis. And, good you noted Castlevania as it was surprisingly awesome! I really enjoyed it and felt that is was much more mature than one would be lead to believe at first glance. But yeah, he’s awesome. Transmetroploitan would be great as a series as well.
Oh man Transmet would make for a fantastic miniseries or show, though you do get into the issue of “who is going to actually allow them to do that?” and problems with the potential budget. But I think it’s a story that is, if anything, even more applicable today.
I wasn’t a fan of the Castlevania show, though. It was better after the first few episodes, but it felt like most of the show _wasn’t_ about a Belmont fighting a Dracula, which seems like a fairly bizarre path to chase down.
Well, they did pull off Preacher which I never thought would happen and The Boys is meant to be in production too, lol.
Castlevania season 2 was much better than 1, IMO, try it out if you have not. I still liked 1 but I went in with very low expectations, haha.