Top 5 Fridays – Arguments for an Oscar for Comic Book Writers

There can be no doubt that Hollywood owes much of its returns of late to the rise of the comic book adaptation. What’s shocking to me is that it took everyone so long to come around to them being a viable source of material, about as long as it took for the world to come around to comics being a viable literary medium. A comic book’s nature as a kind of novel/storyboard hybrid brings it right to the doorstep of the adapted screenplay before it’s even adapted, so shouldn’t the geniuses behind these works be getting some recognition from the Academy?

5. John Wagner (Judge Dredd & A History of Violence) If all you know of Judge Dredd is the movie starring Sly Stallone and Rob Schneider (who the heck allowed that to happen?) then it’s hard to imagine that the source for the film should appear on this list, but the comic book itself was so good. Good to the point of seeming like “can’t lose” kind of material for adaptation, with the kind of elements that made Star Wars an instant hit with audiences, the lone wanderer travelling a morally bereft wasteland, essentially a samurai or gunfighter, Lucas’ bread & butter. Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be. But where Judge Dredd failed, David Cronenberg was able to take Wagner’s graphic novel A History of Violence and do something sad, sick and surprising with it. The story of a murderous gangster who finds peace and starts a new family in a quiet town finds himself dragged back into it when he heroically kills two thugs trying to hold up his greasy spoon. The film explores the ugliness and irresistible nature of violence, and manages to add some rough sex and family tension for good measure. Hey, it’s a Cronenberg film.

4. Mike Mignola (Hellboy) I was fairly familiar with Mignola’s work, even before I rekindled my love affair with comic books in my late 20s, but it was never for any of the work he did on Hellboy. It’s kind of like being best friends with Lance Armstrong and not knowing that he likes to ride a bike.  From the opening minutes of Hellboy, I knew that I had stumbled onto something special, something that had never been done before. I didn’t feel quite that way watching the second film, but that’s not Mike’s fault. I’ve only read through a couple of issues of the comic since seeing the film, but I can see that Guillermo Del Toro went to great lengths to stay loyal to the source material while generously adding his own little touches. For creating such a unique and likeable character (despite his lineage), and for giving him the same birthday as mine, Mike totally belongs on this list. I don’t know if the financial well is dry for more Hellboy flicks – I figured that when I saw Ron Perlman in makeup doing an add for Direct TV, that was probably the end of it, but the series certainly has plenty more material to draw upon.

3. Frank Miller (300, Batman Begins, Sin City & The Spirit) You’d think that a man that has had such a profound effect on comic books and their translation to the big screen would rank higher on this list, but you can only rate so high when you’re the director of The Spirit. All directing inadequacies aside, Frank Miller’s redefinition of the Batman took him to places that not even Tim Burton managed to go when he was directing the franchise. Christopher Nolan grabbed a hold of “Batman: Year One”, probably after reading “The Dark Knight Returns”, and ran with it to places nobody thought a superhero movie could go. Now everybody wants to go there, and I’m sure everybody’s wishing that Frank Miller thought to do his own spin on The Flash, Green Lantern or Spider-Man. His Sin City project was so iconic that he had to be brought on board the production to make sure that it was translated properly (which unfortunately lead him to directing the aforementioned The Spirit). His creative streak appears to be continuing unabated, but I think I’d prefer that he generates ideas rather than directing films.

2. Alan Moore (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, V for Vendetta & Watchmen) We should probably mark him down for his constant attempts to get in the way of his work getting turned into movies, but there’s nobody out there with a mind so original, yet so plugged into society’s psychoses. This guy deserves the Nobel prize for poverty for all the money he’s turned down after refusing to be associated with any of the adaptations of his works. He’s an enigma to me, in that I have so much respect for his work, but constant resistance to sharing it with a larger audience makes me think he’s a bit of a jerk. I suppose given his seriously anti-establishment works, this kind of disinterest in playing the marketing game would be par for the course. Regardless, given the genius that are in the pages of his work, and on the screen, you gotta expect at least a little eccentricity. While The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen might have served more as a cautionary tale that not everything can be translated to celluloid, From Hell remains one of the greatest works of the Hughes Brothers, and Watchmen remains the greatest comic book/graphic novel ever written, and IMHO the greatest movie about comic book culture ever made (and yes I’m aware of a movie called Mallrats).

1. Stan Lee (Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, X-Men, Iron Man, Captain America, Daredevil & The Incredible Hulk) Stan Lee’s journey through life and his eventual installation of chairman emeritus of Marvel Comics has turned him into somewhat of a comic book character himself. While the man will never get an Oscar for his endless stream of cameos in Marvel films, the movie industry owes this man an unpayable debt for creations his has blessed us with. As the genesis for the new face of the sci-fi action hero, Stan Lee has changed the landscape of 21st century entertainment and given a whole legion of geeks something to do other than play D&D. So I suppose putting him in the number one spot might seem like a kickback, but if you consider how the landscape of comic books alone, not just comic book movies, is due to this funny old man with big glasses, he’s earned it. His creations have been making it to the big and small screen for a very long time now, but it took a bit of a wake up call to the Hollywood system to make them realize that just because they look like cartoons, doesn’t mean superheroes have to be goofy… unless they’re Howard the Duck (not a Stan Lee creation). Things were a little shaky at first, and there have been a couple of misfires, but given that Marvel Studios seems to have no problem with rebooting franchises that are barely even 5 years old, we can pretend the first 2 Fantastic Four films ever happened. I’m a little unclear on the need to reboot Spider-Man, given it’s critical and financial success of the first 2 films. Is one bad sequel really grounds for wiping the slate clean? I’m sure Stan is tickled pink that The Avengers movie is pretty much going to take shape in the same way the comic book did. They’ll be taking four incredibly successful Marvel Studios franchises and mashing them up into one super-mega blockbuster that’ll have Warner Bros. scratching their heads about why they couldn’t put their heads together to whip up a Justice League movie. Excelsior!

I’d like to make a special honourable mention for Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian. For obvious reasons Mr. Howard is at the heart of several different phenomena, including the Governator, and what will hopefully be a new instalment in the film franchise that might once again know what a Cimmerian is.