I'm halfway through this monster so I'm a pretty far cry from being able to focus something else I haven't read… but I could expound on The Watchmen as if it were open in front of me. - "a graphic novel of some sort" pretty much has to be Watchmen, especially if you've no background. You must read this article, even if it's Entertainment Weekly.
I've deeply, deeply into comic books and I have to say Watchmen is probably one of the absolute best choices, but I'd actually throw in The Dark Knight Returns as its equal. Those are the two that really made me so absolutely into the medium. Dark Knight Returns sets a standard untouched by any superhero story before or since, truly defining these characters, the actions they take, the magnitude of the consequences and how absolutely realistic it should be, while still maintaining a wonderous fantasy element to bring so much life to it. And then Watchmen obliterated everything related to superheroes with absolute, bone-crushing reality. "Who watches the Watchmen?" is one of the most important sentences written in the last century. So my vote's in for either. I would love to experience either of those again, now nearly a decade later.
None of them have the influence of Watchmen. Watchmen, in parallel with Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, are the two works most responsible for the reinvigoration of the comic superhero. Did you read the article? It's not an exaggeration to say that Watchmen has been influential across media. Maus is a hell of a thing (so's Persepolis for that matter). V for Vendetta is just another Alan Moore. Blankets? I used to get paid to write graphic novels and I had to look it up.
I'll agree that Watchmen had a great influence on the superhero genre. Have you had a chance to check out Invincible, written by Robert Kirkman and published by Image? Not a graphic novel, but an ongoing comic that is at its core, a different take on the Superman type of hero. Then there's also Powers which has become Powers Bureau written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Michael Avon Oeming (who has his own excellent series, The Mice Templar) . Which is kind of like X-Files set in a universe where people have . . . well, super powers. I hear Powers is slated to become a TV series. I'm a little surprised that the works of Moebius or Jodorowsky haven't been mentioned. Perhaps their influence is not as well known, but I certainly think that their work has gone a long way to advance comics and graphic novels as a genre.
Li'l story. So I've got this friend. Agent at William Morris. He sent one of my scripts out, got me some meetings, never did end up getting me a manager. We're having lunch and he says "The way you get a spec script made these days is you throw it at a comic company. You pay for it, they make it, they don't even need to publish it before somebody buys it." "For serious? How much that cost?" "Anywhere from five grand to five hundred. Why?" "'cuz I could probably get my producer to spring for a graphic novel on this other script." 'K. Give it to me and let's see what we can do." "I don't even read graphic novels." "But you have, right?" "Yeah, but I pretty much bailed at Watchmen, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Miller's Batman Returns." "Well, at least you ended on a high note. Hang on a sec." (Proceeds to leave the room and return with a filing box, open three cabinets and absolutely stuff them to the gills with graphic novels) "Here, take these. Keep them." "Damn. You sure?" "They're client samples. If you could carry another box I'd give you another box." * * * And that's how I ended up being courted by Viper, Top Cow, Xenescape, Xene*scope*, Asylum and a half-dozen others… but why my graphic novel experience is pretty spotty. Thing about Moebius - Influential? yes. Readable? no. Airtight Garage is straight-up meaningless and while you can see Blade Runner happening in the Nikopol trilogy, you aren't really that touched by anything that happens. Good friend of mine trained under Juan Gimenez. We keep trying to adapt Goodbye Soldier, and I keep pointing out to him that no less than three different directors have already done Goodbye Soldier as a short film, many of them with really big budgets and, like, Cillian Murphy.
That's pretty cool. Yeah, I'll concede the point on Moebius. The drawing was always of higher quality than the writing and I can see how the lack of a real story in a lot of the work could turn people off. The influence his work had on world building though, is important, I think. I like Airtight Garage but it has that weird Jumanji vibe, what with the dude in the pith helmet. So, is the whole comic/graphic novel adaptation thing slowing down at all? I think an adaptation of DMZ or *Y: The Last Man might be pretty good.
It's completely fucking dead, in fact. Between 2007 and 2009, it worked like this: 1) write a spec script. 2) pay a company like Top Cow to make it. 3) Give Top Cow's work product back to William Morris (CAA had their own department; endeavor didn't) 4) William morris shows it around and some studio somewhere options it 5) William Morris makes 10% of the option money, their writers go on to get meetings and maybe a few other assignments, the project gets shelved where it's never seen again, everyone makes money and nobody has to make a movie. Ari Emmanuel wasn't into it so when Endeavor took over WMA that whole thing stopped. Put it this way: James Cameron made Avatar because it was easier to get greenlit than Battle Angel Alita. Read that again: The guy who brought you movie cyborgs and* titanic can't get money for a movie about a cyborg chick.* Probably because Dark Angel didn't accomplish much other than launching Jessica Alba on us.
Here's the difference:: By the time Hollywood took an interest in The Hunger Games it had sold a million copies. By the time Hollywood took an interest in Twilight, all three books had been written and sold millions of copies. By the time Hollywood took an interest in 50 Shades, it had sold millions of copies. By the time Timur Bekmambetov told a couple buddies of mine to "find a graphic novel to adapt" Wanted had sold less than 5,000 copies. Da Vinci Code? Da Vinci Code is gonna be a movie. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is gonna be a movie. Graphic novels were a short-lived end-run around the "public approval process" whereby studios could be cajoled into making an unknown property without first having an overwhelming tide of public acceptance in place. I heard the chairman of DC comics say that the entire comic-buying public is less than 125,000 people and that if they need to piss off that demographic to get 2.5 million people to watch Green Lantern, they'll do it in a heartbeat. Comics have always been seen as a harbinger of the edge but after 2009 not even that was enough. Mark Millar made it out of the ghetto just in time but everybody else is stuck there. If you aren't Marvel or DC, nobody cares. I first started flirting with Archaia in 2008. Since then, they've gotten one (1) property set up at a studio. You've never heard of it, and you never will.
I guess I can understand DC's stance and also the movie studios' stance. I've read a couple things from Archaia. It seems like a nice little comics company. I'm surprised by the number of the comic-buying public, but I guess comic book characters have been present in cartoons and on merchandise for so long that some of them are bound to be present in the public consciousness, whether or not people have actually bought comic books.
I agree that Watchmen has had the widest audience and popularity. Persepolis is the one I forgot. I guess when I am recommending one graphic novel I just do t want to stick at "the most influential one" although to be honest that's not a bad starting point. Watchmen encapsulates a lot. Blankets and Stitches. Two different authors yet very similar feels. Very different from watchmen et al of course. Realistic, quasi autobiographical. Right now I've been reading. swamp Thing. Amusing considering I am also reading Swamplandia!, I appear to be on a sort of kick.
I'm reading From Hell currently, and then I move on to Faust. Too many common lines along here. Perhaps if the book club seems to be an inappropriate venue or it doesn't pan out for comics here, we should have a small comic club. I would love to have people to discuss with the lesser known works I'm reading, at least to the general public. I'd love to just talk about BKV for a couple of hours.
How is it? I'm not too familiar with Judt, although Souciant had a nice remembrance of him recently. As someone who loves history, Judt's an author I feel like I should get to know. What are your thoughts?
So far it's Barbara Tuchman awesome. Keep in mind: I do most of my heavy lifting as audiobooks. This tome comes in slightly heavier than GRRM's Storm of Swords at 50+ hours. I've been listening for 23 hours and we're all the way up the Suez Crisis, so to call it "intricate" is to understate the level of discussion.