I asked JOSH FLANAGAN, a New York writer and co-creator of the comic book website www.iFanboy.com, for his insight on COMIC BOOK MOVIES. Here's what he had to say:
I HATE THE TERM "COMIC BOOK MOVIE." 
I
have nothing against them, you understand. They’re great for the
industry, if for no other reason than they give lowly starving comic
creators another revenue stream. While there seems to be an enormously
low conversion rate for moviegoers, comic book movies even tend to sell
a few more books than they would otherwise. They’re also good for
publishers, where a company like Top Shelf can get a lot more notice
and sales because they’ve got a Bruce Willis vehicle coming out from
their Surrogates series. Even
when a movie doesn’t do all that well, as seems to have happened with
Whiteout, it still garners more attention than they would normally get,
and again, they sell some books.
However,
to the general public, the term “comic book movie” is a weighted one,
and not necessarily in a good way. A “comic book movie” carries many
of the same suppositions about the content or the maturity and
sophistication of said movie. Go ahead and ask some random folks what
they think of when they hear the term “comic book movie." Nine out of ten
mother in laws will agree that it has something to do with the
following terms:
superheroes
childish
silly
immature
explosions
The
list goes on, of course. You know all the
prejudices against comics, and by extension movies made from them. Of
course, we know that’s not true. Trying to paint all films adapted
from comics with a single stripe is as absurd as saying that all comics
are the same. There are no “comic book comics” (excepting Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey’s series). To anyone who has even an inkling of the current state of comics, the
notion that all comics share any specific traits is foolishness. Last year,
during the summer of “A Thousand Comic Book Movies,” I did a lot of radio appearances for my website iFanboy. They kept asking why so many comic book movies were
coming out, and what it was that made them so attractive to film
producers. 
Since X-Men was released in 2000, it’s been a bit like the gold rush for film
producers, building every year, and reaching critical mass in 2008,
when there were an inordinate amount of comic books made into films. Of course, movies had previously been made from comic book properties. There were movies like Men in Black, Tank Girl and The Crow,
but it never caused the entire film industry to look south to San Diego
and snatch up any property available. There are twp reasons this
happened in my view.
For
one thing, effects technology finally advanced to the point where they
could actually show some of the ideas that have existed in comics for
years, because comics were the only place where such giant ideas could
be portrayed. Comics have no effects budget as the spectacle of a
comic book story is limited only by the imagination and drawing ability
of the creative team. Up until very recently, movie effects simply
weren’t up to the challenge of depicting these things in any way that
wasn’t sort of silly looking. Fifteen years ago, they were still trying to
make rubber suits look realistic and use miniatures and green screen to
fool the audience, but mostly it didn’t work, and the movies were a bit
laughable. There are exceptions of course. Audiences lapped up the Superman movies, but in retrospect, the flying is sort of goofy looking today. The Fantastic Four
movies almost worked against this for reasons I’ll never understand. But now we can see Spider-Man flinging himself through the skyscrapers
of Manhattan, and it damn well works. This is a recent thing.
The
other part of my theory has to do with the development of ideas in the
ghetto of comic books. By the late ’90’s, comics were on life
support. Comics didn’t sell many copies, there was a paucity of comic
shops, and only the most ardent supporters had anything to do with
comics. Even today, with so much focus on comics from the film and pop
culture industry, desperate for new Intellectual Property (IP), making
money on an independent comic book, or even almost any comic book
that’s not coming from Marvel or DC is a gigantic long shot. This
leads me to the conclusion that the people in comics are in comics very
much for the reason that they really love comics. That passion shows
on the pages that we few lucky souls are fortunate enough to know
about. Comics are a terrible place to try to “make it big," so if
you’re in comics, you’re probably in it because you want to be -- and
love comics. The more optimistic part of my mind thinks this would
lead to better stories, and now, finally, producers have realized it and are strip mining the vast, deep veins of IP ore hidden in the San Diego
Convention Center every year. I think this is changing as people have
realized that they can come up with high concepts that are easily
understood and adapted to film. But by and large, there are a lot of
creators out there making comics for the sake of making comics.
But
comics are vast and diverse. Any kind of story you want to tell can be
told in comic book form. Obviously, comics have their strengths, but
it’s a huge mistake to think you can’t tell certain kinds of stories in
panels and pages. You can do anything. This is why the
term “comic book movie” should mean one thing -- and that is “a movie made from
a story originally appearing in a comic book." It should mean nothing else,
because that story can be any type of story, and the movie can be
anything as well. Sure, there are dumb childish action movies made from
comics, but American Splendor, Ghost World, Persepolis, Watchmen and The Dark Knight dispel all those stereotypes. I think the worst of comic book movies
come from ideas held by shortsighted producers who think, “it’s just a
comic book movie, so why bother?” -- and then we're left with Catwoman, Punished War Zone and LXG.
The
next time you or someone else talks about the low expectations that
come along with a “comic book movie,” remember it’s not the same thing
as a “popcorn movie." A comic book movie can be anything, and of any quality. Stand
up for comics, and put an end to this destructive terminology that just
forwards stereotypes about what comics are. It's not good for comics, and it's not good for films. Comic books movies can be anything, and that is exactly what is so
great about them.
Josh Flanagan is a founder, writer and podcast host at iFanboy (www.ifanboy.com) and a comic book writer. He lives in New York City, and can be found at his blog (www.jaflanagan.com) or on Twitter (twitter.com/jaflanagan). He believes comic books are every bit as valid a storytelling method as any other, and works to prove it every day.
