What if Wes Craven wrote a graphic novel?

The graphic novel genre is really picking up steam. I think that comics are able to capture the macabre world and serve it in a more palatable way (perhaps more profitable way?) than movies are able to. These days movies require hundreds of millions of dollars (seriously!) to produce and promote so that they get a profitable return. So making a bunch of slasher / apocalypse movies which are costly and gruesome, they're also very narrow-scope for movie-goers. Not everyone crowds the theatres for The Hills Have Eyes. Yet, they probably shouldn't be crowding the theatres for the Fantastic Four, either.

Comic books (rebranded with the more attractive and mature name of Graphic Novel) is able to create corny super-heroes that aren't necessarily caught up in 'the real world.' There is a mental approach to comics that say - hey, let's leave the real world and watch shit get disturbed.

Anyhow - it's interesting (and exciting) to hear that horror icon Wes Craven is interested in writing a graphic novel. Heavy.com reports:

“I’m thrilled to be working with Liquid Comics and Cheyenne Enterprises on the development of an original idea for both a comic book and for a subsequent film based on it. It’s an idea I’ve been dying to get out there, and working in collaboration with Sharad Devarajan and Arnold Rifkin will be the ideal win/win way to do it,” commented Craven.

Details on Craven’s story have not yet been released and Liquid Comics is currently engaged in dialogues with leading creators in the comic book industry to work with Craven on the project. The graphic novel deal was finalized by Craven’s team at WME, Industry Entertainment, and Ziffren Brittenham LLP.

So - the movie is still on the table. The comic fuels the movie, and then the movie comes out, and surely that will fuel the comic. Works well. I'm sure My Sister's Keeper got a boost in sales when the book was made into a film, even if it did have Cameron Diaz in it.

Case in point, a comic I've never heard of called Astro-City will be developed into a movie. Deadline.com reports:

Working Title Films partners Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner have made a deal to turn Kurt Busiek's graphic novel series Astro City into a live action feature. The deal gives the prolific comic book writer Busiek his first chance to write the script. Launched in 1995, the series has a Sin City anthology vibe, set in a world crammed with superheros and super-villains. Stories are told from the vantage point of those heroes and villains, as well as the humans who get caught between them. Heroes range from Samaritan, The Hanged Man, The Apollo Eleven--a group of astronauts mutated during a moon landing--to Winged Beauty, a feisty feminist who always saves women first. The series has won multiple Eisner and Harvey Awards for Busiek, who created the series with artists Brent Anderson and Alex Ross.

So you can see the pattern here. Graphic novel gets adapted to screenplay, and everyone goes home the richer.

The Watchmen
Here's a link that's posted in a Batman forum that appears to have been written way back before The Watchmen film came out - but it captures my feelings for why it was such a great story after all. The author makes mention of many of the characters' similarities with Batman (which I don't care too much about) while also showing how the story moves from a murder investigation story into a saving the world story. I like the review and share the author's feelings for the book.