Filed Under bone, superheroes, watchmen, wonder woman
Bone movie
Warner Brothers has bought the rights to make a movie based on Jeff Smith’s Bone series. Oh, please, oh, please, let this work out better than the Nickelodeon deal did.
Why I don’t care about the Watchmen movie
Oh, I’m gonna go see it, but I’m really not invested in whether it’s good or bad. That’s because for all its genius, its point was horribly misunderstood by the superhero creators it influenced and ushered in an era of overly violent, “realistic” superhero comics that we’re still trying to live down today.
Watchmen wasn’t saying that superhero stories should be all “mature” and gritty. I believe the point was to show how ridiculous they’d be if they continued down that road. But of course it only pushed them further in that direction and I’m not sure that all the blame can be placed on the readers for not getting it. After all, the first thing we learned in Communications 101 was that if a message doesn’t get through to the listener, it’s not the listener’s fault but the communicator’s.
Or maybe I’m the one who missed the point. But I don’t think so.
Either way, Watchmen: very important influence in comics and enjoyable in its own right, but definitely not one of my favorites. And that’s why I can’t get all excited either positively or negatively about the movie costumes.
Besides, I agree with Mike Sterling that the only superhero costume worth considering is this one right here.
(Okay, that’s not at all what he said, but I’m taking his point and running with it.)
Filed Under adventure, alpha flight, bone, comics, fantasy, mary marvel, superheroes
Light day today.
Adventure
- Fantasy casting doesn’t usually interest me, but dang if The Braxcave hasn’t done a nice job with a hypothetical Alpha Flight movie. I even like the idea of Chris Jericho playing Sasquatch.
- It seems like every time DC does something questionable with one of it’s girl superheroes, artists start creating their own versions of the character in an attempt to hold on to the elements of the character that are being neglected in the comics. Not that I’m complaining, ’cause it’s led to some fantastic art. Looks like Mary Marvel could be the latest.
- Quick Stop Entertainment has a great article (actually a review of Peter Coogan’s Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre) on defining the superhero genre and determining what makes a character a superhero. It’s a long piece with lots of examples, but it’s interesting reading. Boiled down: super heroes are people with costumes, code names, and defined missions who exist in modern day settings. The setting, according to the article, is vitally important. It’s the reason that Batman is a superhero, but Zorro isn’t. Or that Green Lantern is, but Flash Gordon isn’t. The article also makes exceptions for people like Zatanna or Rogue who may lack some of the defining characteristics, but are considered superheroes because either their creators or the characters themselves obviously intended for them to be. It goes to show that the superhero genre is next to impossible to define, but they make a fascinating job of trying.
Fantasy
- Jeff Smith’s showing the prototype for a new Fone Bone plush toy. Hopefully it’s the first in a series.
