In spite of a spectacularly-botched relaunch of its superhero universe just a few years back, and a few ill-conceived and poorly-received crossovers with the DC Universe since then, WildStorm is proving itself to be a vital and interesting place for some non-traditional comics fare.
Marc Andreyko, whose superhero masterpiece Manhunter was recently jettisoned by DC, has set up shop at WildStorm (itself an imprint of DC) and recently published the second issue of Ferryman, his violent, darkly comic…umm, comic based on the Joel Silver-inspired characters. For Andreyko, who rose to mainstream prominence with the Torso miniseries (currently being tortured by Hollywood), the story of a man who’s using his supernatural powers to punish naughty folks in all manner of creative ways is a little bit of a homecoming (what with the exotic violence and all). It also makes me wonder whether DC’s floundering Spectre property might do well to have Andreyko take a swing at the pinata.
Not that I can ever imagine The Spectre being a marketable book, but an Andreyko version would almost certainly get good reviews and develop a cult following before collapsing under the weight of fan apathy.
One book, though, that’s been surprisingly good has just concluded its six-issue run: Chuck, based on the NBC sitcom by the same name and written by a couple of the show’s staff writers, has been a real standout as far as licensed properties are concerned. It took advantage of the comic book format and its “unlimited special effects budget” to good effect—such as traveling to Tokyo and then Rio within about six pages, something you can’t do on a TV show, especially when the economy’s mediocre—but didn’t fall into the trap of straying far from the show or becoming too indulgent in terms of big explosions, unconvincingly-strong bad guys or other such things that you’ll see as non-comics writers try to shoehorn themselves into the comics form. The miniseries was a roaring good time, and I’ll probably write it up more fully when the collected edition hits.
If there was any doubt, though, that writers Peter Johnson and Zev Borow understand the comic book culture, one need only watch their show with a keen eye. Sure, sure, everyone seems to have San Diego Comic Con stickers all over things (walls, lockers at the Buy-More, etc.), but those could be written off as token “geek” indicia. What’s less easy to dismiss, and buys the Chuck staff some Blog@ street cred as far as I’m concerned, is the Y: The Last Man poster in Chuck’s bedroom this season. Check it out, and try to support this show when it gets back on the air so that it doesn’t vanish like Pushing Daisies and, apparently, Dirty Sexy Money, a pair of shows that I really wish had stood more of a chance in today’s market.
Update: I did not realize until just this moment that NBC’s official Chuck website carries the Chuck comic books in their full, unedited glory here. You can view them as a comic book, or as a fully-animated comic (no voices or anything, but pan & scan of the pages, word bubbles that come up as you move through, etc.).
December 8th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
CHUCK is awesome! I watch it whenever it’s on. For some reason, fears about it being canceled stretch back ever since the first time the show came on air. I certainly hope it does find a much wider audience because fun and intelligent shows like this (without the emo-ness and violence of much of today’s popular shows) is something a lot of us need, whether we realize it or not.
Other fun shows I love to watch is PSYCH. They even held one of their episodes in a comic book convention with George Takei. Sort of a downside: None of the posters on the wall were recognizable. I’m sure they were all created just for the show. And yeah, the bad guy in the episode was a bitter comic book creator. ha! ha!
December 9th, 2008 at 3:08 am
CHUCK IS a good show. And, last week Morgan was seen reading an issue of “Ambush Bug”!
December 9th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
CHUCK artist Jeremy Haun deserves a shout-out here.
December 9th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Ferrymen has been all kinds of awesome, but so has Wildstorm’s Worlds End luanch of their WSU characters, 5-6 months in with out a missed shipping date
December 9th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
B. Clay, very true! I didn’t realize until this moment that I’d gotten through this whole little rant without ever mentioning Haun. Many of the artists you get on these licensed properties are so hung up on being photorealistic that it really hurts their books, leaving them looking labored and heavy as the artist tries to painstakingly render every wrinkle and hair. Haun’s fluid, clean pencils captured the essence of the characters and gave a strong resemblance to the actors without driving these things into the ground, leaving him a lot more room to play, to breathe and to have cool things happen. My only concern is that he re-used the same angle of Sarah kicking about thirty times over the life of the book (she could have sold advertising on the bottom of those shoes)…but then, who could really blame him getting a little hung up on legs like those?
December 10th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Hey Gerry, that comic con in the episode of PSYCH was actually created by Arcana Comics and all of the posters (Kade, Koni Waves, Grunts, etc.) in the scenes are of actual comic books. In fact, Grunts (which the poster can be seen in the opening credits of PSYCH every week) was created by Keith Giffen and Wildstorm’s own Shannon Denton!