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Nathan Greno
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Posted: 16 November 2018 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Greg: It would be interesting, though, to see how (badly) a direct/panel-by-panel adaptation of a comic story would fare in live-action, just as an experiment.

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If you're faithfully following the panels, it just wouldn't work. For example, if the panels below were used as the actual storyboards for a film, it would be impossible to follow them as is. The aspect ratio is constantly changing. You'd have to reinterpret every panel into a uniform screen size. At most, the panels could "inspire" shots.

On top of that...

In the first 3 panels, Jor-El is basically the same size in shot -- but everything on screen right keeps changing. Is that meant to be 3 different shots? Because those cuts wouldn't work. Jor-El's size and screen placement would make the shots extremely jarring and look like Lara popped offscreen and popped back on huge. It would be hard to watch. 

I'm not picking on the page. It's a great layout and easy to follow as a comic book page (what it was designed to be). The panels just don't make any sense as literal storyboards.







   
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Greg Kirkman
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Posted: 16 November 2018 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Exactly, Nathan. Even if you recomposed the images to fit a uniform aspect ratio, the actual storytelling wouldn't work. You'd want to be able to intercut masters and close-ups to match the flow of the dialogue, etc.

If that page was filmed as presented in print, you'd have a master, a medium shot, a close-up, another master, another close-up, and then an establishing shot of the carnage outside the lab. Translated to film, it wouldn't make any sense.
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Greg Kirkman
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Posted: 16 November 2018 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

It should also be noted that we HAVE seen certain specific comic pages and panels translated to screen in the movies. Those would make for some interesting comparisons, in regards to composition and storytelling.


For example, John Romita's full-page splash of the costume in the trashcan from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN # 50 was translated to an anamorphic widescreen image for Raimi's SPIDER-MAN 2.
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Steven Myers
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Posted: 16 November 2018 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

I once got to draw a comic from a shooting script (of an episode of a webseries that was never filmed). I intentionally did the layouts using comic-book types of angles and tricks, because I knew otherwise it would be visually uninteresting.

On the topic of comics being mainstream, many of my colleagues and students have expressed sadness to me in the passing of Stan Lee, knowing how much I'm into comics. And they know who he is too!

The last time someone made fun of me for reading comics was probably in high school (the '80s). I feel like all the things that were nerdy when I was a teen-- comics, fantasy stories, computers-- are now totally mainstream. About time the world caught up!
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Nathan Greno
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Posted: 16 November 2018 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Steven Myers: The last time someone made fun of me for reading comics was probably in high school (the '80s). I feel like all the things that were nerdy when I was a teen-- comics, fantasy stories, computers-- are now totally mainstream. About time the world caught up!

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But that thought can totally drive me crazy... Oh! NOW all you idiots think this stuff is cool. Great. Thanks for making me feel like a total reject in high school.

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Steve Coates
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Posted: 16 November 2018 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Well than, all those smug, distainful people trying to make their fellow teens feel ashamed, were really secret fans. And now feel they can embrace their desires because they have become mainstream. It is too bad they missed out on the good stuff, which youthful minds can make wonderful.

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Michael Roberts
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Posted: 16 November 2018 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Yep, today if you read comics and you're an adult it's perfectly respectable. Particularly if you're in your 20s. Thing is, the popularity of the Marvel movies and Netflix shows -- and video games -- has not translated into increased sales of Marvel comics or any comics whatsoever. And I don't think that the average comic being $3.99 (!!) an issue helps at all.  

———

Sure it has. They’re just in trade form. The demographic buying trades is younger and more female than the market buying single issues from the LCBS. It’s a newer audience, not just the older one shifting formats. 
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 16 November 2018 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

If it goes back to where reading comic books makes you a retard I'm cool with that. I heard they called the Ramones names like that... rock and roll! |,,| Hey. Waitaminnit, Peter Bagge had some of the most rock and roll comical books ever, and they were published by that intellectualizing serious adult blah-blah poobah Gary Groth! So I don't know what to think anymore. I like pictures. I like words. It's like, you got chocolate in my peanut butter or you got peanut butter on my chocolate... who cares, just so long as you enjoy 'em! You can study the Hitchcock and Truffaut movies all you want and still not be half the comics story-teller Steve Ditko or Will Eisner were.
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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 17 November 2018 at 11:05am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

"Has anyone here honestly had a significant
other/potential suitor lose interest in you because of
your comic book collection? Seriously? I don't buy it."
====
Oh most definitely. Generally the few who have, felt I
hadn't grown up enough to have a real relationship. My
current girlfriend didn't care as long as it didn't take
over the house. Then I got her hooked on FABLES.Those
trades sit in the the living room bookshelf. She doesn't
worry about the house anymore, and thanks to me she now
attends cons regularly.
ONE OF US.
ONE OF US.
ONE OF US.

Edited by Stephen Churay on 17 November 2018 at 11:07am
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Adam Schulman
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Posted: 17 November 2018 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Sure it has. They’re just in trade form. The demographic buying trades is younger and more female than the market buying single issues from the LCBS. It’s a newer audience, not just the older one shifting formats. 

***

If this is true then I'm happy. I do see big comics sections in Barnes & Noble -- I just don't know how much actually sells or just sits there.

I do see young women and men reading comics, either as issues or TPBs, on the NYC subway on a fairly regular basis. 

Re: Gary Groth. There were always good reasons to read THE COMICS JOURNAL. He wasn't one of them.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 17 November 2018 at 12:34pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

I was surprised to see mostly young women on the Kodansha bookstore comic floor... going through the ones in English, which I found all very overpriced, especially for b&w, so I don't think price is a barrier. Of course a lot of Japanese comics are aimed more widely with more soap type stories. I was looking at Tezuka reprints and they were engrossed in modern soap with a bit of fantasy or history series I know little about. I guess the two volume Princess Knight by Tezuka I bought is the ancestor to them!
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