Movies that Are Better than the Comic Book or Graphic Novel

Usually, If I really like the comic book or graphic novel, I don't like the movie quite as much, though I still enjoy it if it doesn't screw things up completely. Examples include: Lone Wolf and Cub, The Crow,Ghost World, V for Vendetta, and American Splendor. Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind is really close, but I feel the comic book is a little bit better in the world-creation department and the ending was more poignant (of course, they are both by Miyazaki, so that's a special case). Mainstream superhero comics are hard to judge because there are so many different writers and inkers (I don't read them much because of that, though I can enjoy the symbolism and mythos in a movie).

There are a few movies that are better than the comic books, though:

Ghost in the Shell. It's a good graphic novel, but Shirow gets sidetracked by his love of shiny mecha and cheesy cheesecake (though he does both well). The movie really focuses on the theme without the clutter, and I can watch it again and again.

The Stormriders. Wing Shing Wa is the master of crazy kung-fu battles, but his story is all over the place and his characters lack personality. The movie distills what's great about the comic into a silly but super-fun cgi Hong Kong version of Clash of the Titans.

Lady Snowblood. This one is close, but Koike (adapting his own comic) cuts out some of the silliness and the totally shoehorned-in lesbian subtheme of the comic, leaving us nothing but sweet, sweet vengeance.

I haven't read the graphic novels of Hellboy,Diabolik, or History of Violence, or seen the movie of Persepolis. Any thoughts on these? Someday I'd like to compare the manga, anime and French live-action version of Rose of Versailles (AKA Lady Oscar), but I'm not sure I'm ready to lay out the considerable dough.

----------------
Now playing: Groove Radio
via FoxyTunes

Comments

MY BUBBLE

This is real heavy metal, by the way . So, this guy whose name I swear I'd never heard but appeared to have gone to my high school tried to friend me on Facebook. His main interests were the band Stryper and Republicanism, so I didn't add him. I mean, really, Stryper ? I thought teens in the 80s only listened to them because they liked metal and their parents forbade any other band as a direct path to the worship of Satan. When you leave home, you throw away their records and listen to real metal. But then I read this article that said we are all getting trapped in a bubble of like-minded people who parrot our ideas back to us, due to social networks and rss feeds and apps only giving us the people/opinions/stories we want to hear. And I thought--maybe I was wrong. Or maybe I'm OK, because I do have a lot of weird interests that make it pretty hard to find people who are on the same page with everything. I have social network connections with people around roleplaying game...

TOP TEN LIPSYNCH FOR YOUR LIFE SONGS FOR A DRAG KING EQUIVALENT OF RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE

The Advocate has suggested that the greatest (i.e. only good) reality show ever, Rupaul's Drag Race , have a drag king contestant. That's fine, but it would be much more entertaining to have a whole drag king competition. One of the best parts of Drag Race is seeing all the different types of queens compete: beauty queens, funny queens, conceptual queens, androgynous queens, scary queens, singing and dancing queens. I want to see punk kings, gangsta rap kings, cock-rocking metal kings, panty-dropping R & B kings, country kings, baggy-pants burlesque comic kings, and of course, Elvis. I picked out some songs that make me think of different aspects of masculinity: swaggering men, heartbroken men, lustful men, romantic men, philosophical men, and suicidally depressed men (interesting fact: I can think of dozens of songs by men about suicide, but only one female one: "Gloomy Sunday". What's up with that?) "That's Life" - Frank Sinatra...

TOP MUSIC GENRES FOR YOUR CYBERPUNK GAME

So I guess cyberpunk is hot again. I don't play those newfangled video games, but all this fanfare made me remember my old Cyberpunk 2020 days, when I was Jael Furoshiki, Japanese/Jewish survivor of of a destroyed South China Sea pirate pack trying to make a living in the Minneapolis Red Zone as a bodyguard/food delivery technician (yes, both a pirate and an ninja). Later she got ported to Interface Zero , which got rid of some of the anachronisms and C2020's crazy-high fatality rate (there used to be a page dedicated to players' favorite deceased characters, sadly now lost to even the Wayback Machine). Anyway, one time I made up musical genres my character would listen to--can't find my old character sheets, but this gives you the idea... TOP MUSIC GENRES FOR YOUR CYBERPUNK GAME: Cambo-Punk Robo-Funk Post-post-post-post-post Punk Really New Wave Black Klezmetal Danish RaiZulu Techno-Jive Country & Western & Gabber Lo-NRG Goan Garage Garage...

Odd Obsession

Search This Blog