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“aquaman, you cannot marry a woman without gills! you are from different worlds! (sees neutron bomb) oh, i’ve wasted my life…”

- last week, aaron sent me the first look at the costumes from the upcoming watchmen film. i guess they’re OK. certain comics lend themselves to film, but watchmen definitely isn’t one of them. this is what happens when 30+ year old fanboys are in charge; they all have the same touchstones (mostly whatever frank miller, alan moore and neil gaiman have crapped out over the past twenty years) - dark knight returns, watchmen and to a lesser degree sandman & maus. the idea is that watchmen was such an important comic that it demands to be made into film. no, it doesn’t!

there is a great line in brian k. vaughan’s the escapist(s) where the main character turns down an offer to see a double feature of ghost world and american splendor: “nah, i hate adaptations. comics should be an end unto themselves and not glorified screenplays…” it sounds kind of hypocritical with the Y the last man movie being made but at the end of the day it’s always going to be $$$, $$$, $$$.

- shafik, aaron and i went to see jumper a few weeks ago (it was either that or go with the girls to 80s night at the breakfast club) and there was one line that completely annoyed me. hayden christiansen’s character asks, “you read marvel team up?” to a rogue jumper whose help he’s trying to enlist. david goyer, please STFU. the success of comic book films doesn’t validate comics, it just shows yet again that hollywood is out of ideas and has found an easy stream of properties and licensing with a built-in fanbase to strip mine.

- on a related note, i realize that a lot of people will disagree with me but i don’t buy into the academic analysis of comics at all. at best, yes, they can be high art that moves you but mostly they’re simply fun, nerdy stories with cool illustrations and at worst, they’re the most base outlet for adolescent power fantasies. the same nerds that write papers over the fascist milieu that is home to the dark knight returns or the deconstruction of superheroes in watchmen didn’t buy it for those reasons, they bought them because they want to geek out over batman fighting superman and see what insanity alan moore would put his characters through next. let’s be real about it.