{"id":2002,"date":"2008-05-29T04:46:26","date_gmt":"2008-05-29T04:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com\/blog\/?p=181"},"modified":"2008-05-29T04:46:26","modified_gmt":"2008-05-29T04:46:26","slug":"licensed-comics-canon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com\/site\/licensed-comics-canon\/","title":{"rendered":"Licensed comics, canon?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Den of Geek<\/a><\/strong> recently addressed the canonicity of licensed comic books. Overall, their article is a truthful look at how one can gauge where licensed comics fall within a particular canon.<\/p>\n

Alternate Cover: Licensed Comics<\/strong>
\nJames takes a look at the world of licensed comics – movie and TV show tie-ins – and concludes that, er, they’re not very good, really<\/em>
\nJames Hunt
\n
\nIn the world of computer gaming, nothing screams \u201cquality\u201d like a licensed tie-in. Unfortunately, it\u2019s also prone to scream the word \u201cbad\u201d immediately beforehand. This is an accepted truth in the world of computer games \u2013 you don\u2019t buy a licensed title expecting anything more than a cheap, rushed, shallow cash-in. It makes sense \u2013 with licensors hovering over the creative process, and usually a time limit in the form of, say, a cinematic release date to synchronise with, there\u2019s no room for error, and that means no room for invention.<\/p>\n

Licensed comics are rarely any different. Where movies tend to have licensed computer games, there\u2019s a decades-old trend of TV shows having a licensed comic. Even so, after over 30 years of trying, they\u2019re still almost universally crap. With the time and storytelling restrictions vastly different to game tie-ins, what is it that makes licensed comics the utter quality black hole that they so frequently are? I\u2019ve been considering it and I think I\u2019ve identified the three mistakes that licensed comics make. A few case studies, and I hope to illustrate exactly why only the most dedicated fan should go within 10 feet of a licensed comic.<\/p>\n

1. \u201cNo budget\u201d syndrome \u2013 One of the first things you can be guaranteed to read when someone brings an existing property to comics is a statement along the lines of \u201cWell, of course, since we have no budget restrictions, we can do anything we want, as long as it can be drawn!\u201d A fair enough statement, yes, but on closer inspection, what does it really mean?<\/p>\n

In the case of IDW\u2019s comic-based \u201cSeason Six\u201d of Angel, it means taking Los Angeles to hell and having Angel fight a ludicrous number of massively-proportioned demons every issue \u2013 something that makes the series almost impossible to take seriously. After all, the Angel show we remember featured a small number of demons, almost always human-like in appearance. It was absolutely a budget restriction, but one that kept the show grounded in believability, as much as a show about a vampire detective could be.<\/p>\n

With this new freedom to depict demons of all shapes and sized, the reality constructed over five years of the TV show has been utterly discarded in favour of bigger, better things\u2026 that don\u2019t remotely match what the viewers of Angel remember. The solution to this one is simple \u2013 let the TV show that you\u2019re adapting inform the look of the comic, and stick religiously to that. Any time you\u2019re thinking \u201cwow, we could never have done this on TV!\u201d that\u2019s a sign that you shouldn\u2019t be doing it.<\/p>\n

2. No Actors \u2013 A hard one to get around. The appeal of any TV show is basically down to two things. The acting and writing. A comic has plenty of writing going into it \u2013 comic and TV scripts are fairly similar, after all \u2013 but the acting, well, that\u2019s another matter. IDW are currently publishing a continuation of Star Trek: TOS, but really, what\u2019s the point of Kirk without Shatner? (JJ Abrams, I\u2019m looking at you!)<\/p>\n

Even Dark Horse\u2019s fantastic Buffy: Season 8 comic struggles with this one. The artist on that series, Georges Jeanty, does brilliant work, recalling the look of the actors while still drawing the characters, rather than the people who played them, and the dialogue in Buffy was always so well-defined that you can almost hear the characters speaking their lines, even on the page.<\/p>\n

Almost, anyway. Even in what is arguably the industry\u2019s best ever licensed comic, there\u2019s something missing. A voice here, a facial expression there \u2013 no matter how good it looks, part of the essence of the characters is always going to be locked into the actor, somewhere. You can no more draw the \u201creal\u201d Buffy than you can replace Sarah Michelle Gellar with another actress. The two are inseparable, and that’s one element a comic can never compete with.<\/p>\n

3. No Canonicity \u2013 This one is what really does it for me. The problem lies in the fact that the comics, no matter how good the stories in them are, simply don\u2019t count. It seems a bizarre claim to make, but let\u2019s face it \u2013 we\u2019re all geeks here, and we all understand the difference between a story that \u201cdid\u201d happen \u2013 i.e. anything in a Star Wars film \u2013 and stories that only happened until a film says they didn\u2019t \u2013 i.e. anything in a Star Wars comic, novel, computer game or god forbid, CCG.<\/p>\n

As a result, you\u2019re left wondering whether there\u2019s any point to what you just read. The characters can\u2019t change and the plots can\u2019t really be advanced. Is the story itself enough? Often, the answer is \u201cno\u201d. Again, there have been stabs at addressing this. The creator of cult-hit Disney cartoon Gargoyles is telling new, in-canon stories set after the end of the cartoon. Buffy: Season 8 is written by Joss Whedon – it doesn\u2019t get any more official than that \u2013 and yet, Whedon recently admitted if he had the chance to make a new TV show, all bets were off and contradicting the events of the comic wouldn\u2019t keep him up at night.<\/p>\n

One wonders just how important even an in-canon comic can really be \u2013 after all, they\u2019re a small industry \u2013 on TV Buffy was measuring its viewers in millions per episode, but the comic series is doing well to be selling over 100,000 copies per issue. Even with the best intentions, comics are way, way down the ladder of importance. Why worry about upsetting 100,000 fans if another 4.9 million are happy? Kevin Smith proved as much when he cannibalised massive sections of his own “in-continuity” Jay and Bob comic into the movie, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. The comics, no matter how official they might be, no matter how much good faith they’re written in, only happened until something more important says they didn’t.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, there\u2019s very little that can be done to make a licensed comic stand up to reasonable quality. While Buffy: Season 8 is fantastic, it\u2019s a small ray of light in a field plagued with half-arsed cash-ins. Only the most obsessed fans should bother with anything else \u2013 that\u2019s the way it\u2019s always been, and unfortunately, despite genuine attempts to legitimise tie-ins – that\u2019s pretty much the way it\u2019s going to stay.<\/p>\n

07\/04\/08<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Den of Geek recently addressed the canonicity of licensed comic books. Overall, their article … Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[54,69,80,154,203],"class_list":["post-2002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-canon","tag-comic-books","tag-den-of-geek","tag-james-hunt","tag-nightmare-on-elm-street"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2002\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nightmareonelmstreetfilms.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}