Moving Pictures

SUPERMAN and THE X-MEN may have been hit movies, but in 2001 it was two quite different books that hit our screens, and they did more than the superheroes ever could to turn people on to comics.
18 January 2002

The year 2001 saw the release of two of the most important comic book movies to date: GHOST WORLD and FROM HELL.

These two films are not the extravagantly budgeted, multi-hued superhero epics we've come to associate with cinematic adaptations of comic books, targeted at a teen audience in the hopes of creating a franchise. One is a coming-of-age story about teenage girls, and the other is about the conspiracy and investigation surrounding Jack the Ripper. The two have little in common, except that they are both adapted from graphic novels.

And that's precisely the point.

Part of the problem with comic book movies to date has been that they are based on serials that the company hopes will run forever (or at least through to the end of the fiscal year). The movies are not based on a particular story so much as they are riffs on characters and ideas that were created years before and have been reinterpreted dozens of times by dozens of creators.

Graphic novels have the benefit of being a complete story with a beginning, middle and end. The process for turning one into a film is remarkably similar to adapting a book or a play, translating the words into a visual language.

Part of what has always dogged comic book films like BATMAN and SPIDER-MAN has been how the characters should be treated and what the storyline will be. Now, many comic films are also origin stories, but consider how differently Stan Lee, John Byrne and Brian Michael Bendis have told the origin of Spider-Man. Each essentially tells the same story, but the approaches vary, and the film will no doubt be different from all of them.

Independently produced comics are a very fertile ground for film, particularly independent film, with which it shares a unique and offbeat perspective on the world and a love of quirky characters and stories that can be difficult to characterise.

With GHOST WORLD, Daniel Clowes found the perfect collaborator in Terry Zwigoff, an eccentric documentarian who, up until now, had produced only two works in fifteen years (LOUIE BLUIE and CRUMB). Zwigoff directed and co-wrote the film, and has captured the essential core of Clowes' work while changing the structure and the characters, forging something that is very much his own creation, but clearly a part of Clowes' work as well. It helps that the cast is uniformly excellent and that stars Thora Birch, Scarlet Johansson and Steve Buscemi do some of their finest work in this film.

Even more amazing is that, while GHOST WORLD will make less money than X-MEN made in its opening weekend, GHOST WORLD will do more for comics than the X-MEN movie ever did. While X-MEN came and went without notice on the comic sales charts, the collection of GHOST WORLD has been selling briskly.

Fantagraphics has sold over 70,000 copies to date and has gone back to press, struggling to keep up with the demand. There have been four printings this year alone, one of which sold out in only one week, making GHOST WORLD Fantagraphics' biggest bestseller. Other Clowes collections and sales of his comic EIGHTBALL are also on the rise.

People who saw GHOST WORLD are going out and buying the comic, the way that people who saw THE ENGLISH PATIENT bought the book. What this means for Clowes and his work in the long run is uncertain, but with he and Zwigoff preparing a film version of Clowes' ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, to star Drew Barrymore, it is possible that the release of a new Clowes book could lead to the same reaction as when any other author comes out with a new work. We'll have to wait to see whether this is the start of a larger trend and greater recognition for one of America's greatest living cartoonists, but it bodes well.

If GHOST WORLD stands as a shining example of how the sensibilities of a comic can be translated into film successfully, then FROM HELL may be the first example of a comic gutted and trashed by the film industry. Superhero fans may cite BATMAN AND ROBIN, or the FANTASTIC FOUR movie that shamed Roger Corman, but I think that if someone took the time, he could find comics in those franchises that are far worse than those two movies.

FROM HELL is a different creature altogether, a densely plotted and detailed account of events surrounding the Jack the Ripper murders. It is rare for a graphic novel, because it would seem to defy adaptation due to its complex structure. While Dan Clowes was willing to work on the film version of his comic, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell sold the rights to FROM HELL and washed their hands of it. That was clearly the easiest path, given that FROM HELL is a phonebook-sized story with a detailed forty-eight-page appendix of sources and references.

The book essentially defies adaptation. Many of the plot threads had to be dropped, and the story itself was refocused, so it is now told from the point of view of Inspector Abberline, played by Johnny Depp, with the conspiracy unfolding to him and the audience at the same time.

The film is from Allen and Albert Hughes, the men behind MENACE II SOCIETY and DEAD PRESIDENTS, and I've been a fan of their work for years. The project is a departure for them, but the Hughes brothers' understanding of violence, their empathy toward their characters, and their professed love of the book have ensured the adaptation is at least interesting. Yet the result is still a relatively straightforward tale of the search for Jack the Ripper.

In perhaps one of the stranger conversations about movies I have taken part in recently, I argued with a co-worker about the nature of the film. He disliked it, feeling it was confusing and convoluted. I disliked it because I thought it was too simple and straightforward. It's a pretty common conversation when books are turned into movies, but not when comics are turned into movies.

FROM HELL opened strong at the box office and has become a modest hit, which has helped sales of the book. In the early fall, the book went back to press for a fourth printing with the movie cover, and Eddie Campbell Comics has already gone back to press for a fifth edition of the book. I admit I was uncertain whether people would pay thirty-five dollars for such a weighty tome, but in a world where THE ENGLISH PATIENT can become an international best selling novel, pretty much anything is possible.

This year will see the release of THE ROAD TO PERDITION, a film starring Tom Hanks, Jude Law, Stanley Tucci and Paul Newman, directed by Sam Mendes (AMERICAN BEAUTY) and based on the graphic novel by Max Allan Collins & Richard Piers Rayner. A film with such a stellar cast, lensed by Mendes on his first film since winning the Best Director Oscar, will be met with high expectations. Hopefully the film's release will lead to a new edition of the book, to attract comic readers who ignored the book upon its initial release and the movie fans who are interested in the story. Ideally the new edition would seek to attract both, with a photo cover, pull quotes on the back, and an introduction and afterword by people involved in the film. It's an excellent opportunity, and we can only hope that publisher Pocket Books realises this.

There are dozens of other works currently in development or in negotiations from Hollywood, books ranging from VOLCANIC REVOLVER to TORSO, DEATH: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING to BONE, WHITEOUT to PLANETARY. Not all of them will get made, but it's a positive sign to see that comics are at last being recognised as a storytelling medium that is not the exclusive property of the superhero. And that's a step in the right direction.

Alex Dueben is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.

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