How is there not a Spirit thread here?

[Trickster Loki Laufeyson]

Kyle Baker Cartoons

I was hired by Marvel to provide a Captain America which would appeal to the Black youth who thought Marvel was corny and old-fashioned. I had been hired along with the writer because we had done a successful series of hip-hop cartoons in Vibe magazine. I have also directed a hip-hop video for MTV, and done Hip-Hop album covers. I did what I was hired to do, providing a graffiti-styled Black Captain America. The fans crucified me.

You mean Truth? The miniseries about Isaiah Bradley? I ******** loved that series.

[Trickster Loki Laufeyson]

Well, now that you've mentioned that you've got some pretty impressive hip hop credentials- assuming that you like hip hop- what draws you to it and who are your favorite hip hop artists?

[Celaeno]

Kyle Baker Cartoons

Is this really what you want to discuss with me now that you have the opportunity?

Would you like to change the subject instead?

The Darwyn Cooke reinterpretation of The Spirit was fairly well recieved universally. While not considered to be abosolutely brilliant in all circles, it was beautifully executed and quite engrossing. Cooke as the artist was a good move, although considering I know what he's capable of from a design and layout perspective I wish he'd push a bit further past the envelope. A little too much playing it safe I think.
Miller's reinterpretation has been pretty panned on the whole though. The film garners 14% on Rotten Tomatoes and it's currently 13 at the box office.

So why has one suceeded and the other failed? Where do you think the major differences lie? Is bad press influencing people for/against one or the other?

I'm not so sure that the comic relaunch garnered quite as much acclaim as people think. It's not making huge sales so it's not really the impressive much-loved book it's being lauded at (holding at around 10,000 last I checked), but it gets a lot of positive press. Press doesn't always get people to pick something up, sadly.
It could very well be the core markets are so hugely different, one being the movie-going public and the other...well comic nerds.

[Linda Lee Danvers]

I bought Plastic Man. xp Both in trade and single issue. And "The Bakers" And the Spirit Christmas special. My favorite of your works though remains Letitia Lertner: Superman's Babysitter. biggrin

Glad you returned to the thread to continue the discourse. Gaia's Comic Book community, though tiny is one of the most positive ones I've found online. We love recommendations and in-depth discussion alongside the "what is your favorite..." and "who reads..." topics. You're the first (publicly admitted) comic creator outside of our indy regs to post.

I would like to say a couple things to note about our community. biggrin

"CJ Hammer" IS his real name. We call him Jay for short, generally. He (like most of us here) do have several screennames, mainly because not only are we comic book fans but we like playing with paper dolls. So we dress the avatars up as our favorite characters. Jay, in fact, has a Plastic Man avatar...He's addressing you on his account with his real name to give you the same courtesy that you've given us.

The other thing to note is that Gaia actively discourages its users from giving out personal information, including real names, emails, phone numbers and whatnot. There is a large and frightening community of hackers and scammers on the site. Obstensibly they're looking for passwords to steal your paper doll's items, but there are also cases of them using that information to crack emails and steal credit card/Paypal information. As much as many of us would like just to be known as "Us" (and you'll a lot of us refering to each other by our real names as we're all friends), I'm afraid giving out a lot of personal information for the sake of not appearing to be cowards hiding behind a computer while discussing movies we don't like isn't an option.

My name is Linda, by the way. My main account is Giabrenna and I'm a Site Moderator, so hence all the 'community rules' info up there.

In regards to the Spirit discussion, there's actually three or four threads talking about both the movie and the comic right now. As a Spirit fan, I'm heartened by the increased interest that the movie has caused for the comic, which as you can agree I hope has not received the mainstream notice and approval that it really deserves. The awards are called the "Eisners" for goodness sakes!

You happened to find the thread that reacted to your review. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you, like Peter David, went to sites like Newsarama and CBR to find the usual jerks out dancing in the streets celebrating Frank Miller's "failure" with the Spirit. There's a lot of Shadenfreude on the internet. Your "review" is a reaction to that particular facet.

Here on Gaia, incidentally, our 700 + page of DC discussion was recently derailed by a several pages long positive discussion of Frank Miller's "Elektra" hardcovers. Though I can't speak for everyone, I'd like to say that generally we aren't a community of haters for the sake of hating. One of the mantras the regulars practice here is to read the Newsarama articles and not the replies. xd

Back to the discussion of the Spirit at hand...

I haven't seen the movie, and can't honestly say I'm too interested in doing so. I own about a dozen or so of the Spirit hardbacks DC printed out and when I saw the trailers for the movie I didn't feel the thrill of recognition or a spark of "must see that." When I see a live action Spirit in my mind, I think of Gene Kelly. The Spirit (In my opinion) shoulda been a movie back in the 50's. xp

While I appreciate yourself and Peter David's defense of a friend/friends who worked on the movie, I do not feel that I should go and see the movie just to support Frank Miller. I've never enjoyed reading his work and as a 29 year old woman, am hardly his target audience. I famously inherited my large collection of Batman 70's comics when my mom's uncle read Batman: Year One, threw it against a wall and swore off comics forever.

It's disappointing to me. I'd love to see a Spirit movie be as successful as Miller's other ventures, 300 and Sin City. The Spirit deserves his own animated series, toy line and to be on a cereal box, in my opinion. But the tone and emotion that obviously worked for those movies either didn't translate well to the Spirit or wasn't translated on the screen effectively by the editors/the actors/the director/whomever.

In the current economic state, the Spirit being a failure of a movie is going to have other repercussions as well. Disney's already passed on doing the third Chronicles of Narnia movie. The Shazam! movie has been stalled. Investors are not going to put forth the money for a superhero who's not instantly recognizable to the public without proof that such a thing can be successful, and right now that proof is dwindling, especially because Frank Miller, well-known comic author and movie creator, is attached to the Spirit project. Will Supermax: Green Arrow ever see production? How about Jonah Hex? Marvel's floated a metric ton of superhero movie ideas, but outside of Iron Man and Spider-Man, what's going to be able to make it now?

[Kyle Baker Cartoons]

Celaeno

Kyle Baker Cartoons

I joined this site so I could have fun with my oldest daughter, who visits here all the time. I saw a "Spirit" thread, and figured I could interact with other people who love Will Eisner's work. Imagine my surprise when I found a page devoted to attacking me and Peter David for defending our friend.

I would hardly think the few comments which have mention either you or Peter would label this a thread "devoted to attacking [Kyle Baker] and Peter David."

I stand corrected.

There are some valid criticisms of the film here, many of which seem to be getting dismissed out of hand.
I don't like the vapid one-liners that have been taped to the character in the film? Well that must mean I don't think the Spirit is supposed to be funny, not that I do in fact think the Spirit is supposed to be funny and this film has failed spectacularly at that.
I don't like that the film is a visual knock-off of Sin City, setting an exaggeratedly dark tone which I think is a hack move to try and play off the previous film as opposed to finding a direction more appropriate to the character? Well that must mean I hate Sin City and Frank Miller, not that, while I liked the former and have a more complicated relationship with the latter, I don't think this was the right direciton.
I haven't seen the film, but the above linked review mentioned there was sexism in the movie and I'm not surprised. Miller's recent works tend to be seeped in that special MillerBrand sexism, where women are sexual cartoons and provide simpering support material for Very Manly Men.
What I find insulting is the insinuation that because the original material in the Spirit also contained sexism, I'm not supposed to be offened that MillerBrand sexism shines through here.
Somehow, it's ok to move with the times and not include Ebony White (a move which I agree with) because of its racist problems, but chicks? Well who cares, we're just chicks and why should we watch a comic book movie anyway.

Those are valid criticisms. I hear you. The movie has failed at the box office, which means nobody has seen it.

You have been heard. You have not been dismissed out of hand. The writer who has offended you has reached out to you personally the acknowledge that your criticism has been registered, and that your correction of his choice of phrase has been duly noted.

You win!

Do you have a favorite Will Eisner Spirit story? I've always like the stories with Mr. Carrion.

[Kyle Baker Cartoons]

Linda Lee Danvers

I bought Plastic Man. xp Both in trade and single issue. And "The Bakers" And the Spirit Christmas special. My favorite of your works though remains Letitia Lertner: Superman's Babysitter. biggrin

Glad you returned to the thread to continue the discourse. Gaia's Comic Book community, though tiny is one of the most positive ones I've found online. We love recommendations and in-depth discussion alongside the "what is your favorite..." and "who reads..." topics. You're the first (publicly admitted) comic creator outside of our indy regs to post.

I would like to say a couple things to note about our community. biggrin

"CJ Hammer" IS his real name. We call him Jay for short, generally. He (like most of us here) do have several screennames, mainly because not only are we comic book fans but we like playing with paper dolls. So we dress the avatars up as our favorite characters. Jay, in fact, has a Plastic Man avatar...He's addressing you on his account with his real name to give you the same courtesy that you've given us.

The other thing to note is that Gaia actively discourages its users from giving out personal information, including real names, emails, phone numbers and whatnot. There is a large and frightening community of hackers and scammers on the site. Obstensibly they're looking for passwords to steal your paper doll's items, but there are also cases of them using that information to crack emails and steal credit card/Paypal information. As much as many of us would like just to be known as "Us" (and you'll a lot of us refering to each other by our real names as we're all friends), I'm afraid giving out a lot of personal information for the sake of not appearing to be cowards hiding behind a computer while discussing movies we don't like isn't an option.

My name is Linda, by the way. My main account is Giabrenna and I'm a Site Moderator, so hence all the 'community rules' info up there.

In regards to the Spirit discussion, there's actually three or four threads talking about both the movie and the comic right now. As a Spirit fan, I'm heartened by the increased interest that the movie has caused for the comic, which as you can agree I hope has not received the mainstream notice and approval that it really deserves. The awards are called the "Eisners" for goodness sakes!

You happened to find the thread that reacted to your review. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you, like Peter David, went to sites like Newsarama and CBR to find the usual jerks out dancing in the streets celebrating Frank Miller's "failure" with the Spirit. There's a lot of Shadenfreude on the internet. Your "review" is a reaction to that particular facet.

Here on Gaia, incidentally, our 700 + page of DC discussion was recently derailed by a several pages long positive discussion of Frank Miller's "Elektra" hardcovers. Though I can't speak for everyone, I'd like to say that generally we aren't a community of haters for the sake of hating. One of the mantras the regulars practice here is to read the Newsarama articles and not the replies. xd

Back to the discussion of the Spirit at hand...

I haven't seen the movie, and can't honestly say I'm too interested in doing so. I own about a dozen or so of the Spirit hardbacks DC printed out and when I saw the trailers for the movie I didn't feel the thrill of recognition or a spark of "must see that." When I see a live action Spirit in my mind, I think of Gene Kelly. The Spirit (In my opinion) shoulda been a movie back in the 50's. xp

While I appreciate yourself and Peter David's defense of a friend/friends who worked on the movie, I do not feel that I should go and see the movie just to support Frank Miller. I've never enjoyed reading his work and as a 29 year old woman, am hardly his target audience. I famously inherited my large collection of Batman 70's comics when my mom's uncle read Batman: Year One, threw it against a wall and swore off comics forever.

It's disappointing to me. I'd love to see a Spirit movie be as successful as Miller's other ventures, 300 and Sin City. The Spirit deserves his own animated series, toy line and to be on a cereal box, in my opinion. But the tone and emotion that obviously worked for those movies either didn't translate well to the Spirit or wasn't translated on the screen effectively by the editors/the actors/the director/whomever.

In the current economic state, the Spirit being a failure of a movie is going to have other repercussions as well. Disney's already passed on doing the third Chronicles of Narnia movie. The Shazam! movie has been stalled. Investors are not going to put forth the money for a superhero who's not instantly recognizable to the public without proof that such a thing can be successful, and right now that proof is dwindling, especially because Frank Miller, well-known comic author and movie creator, is attached to the Spirit project. Will Supermax: Green Arrow ever see production? How about Jonah Hex? Marvel's floated a metric ton of superhero movie ideas, but outside of Iron Man and Spider-Man, what's going to be able to make it now?

I see!

[Celaeno]

Linda Lee Danvers

In the current economic state, the Spirit being a failure of a movie is going to have other repercussions as well. Disney's already passed on doing the third Chronicles of Narnia movie. The Shazam! movie has been stalled. Investors are not going to put forth the money for a superhero who's not instantly recognizable to the public without proof that such a thing can be successful, and right now that proof is dwindling, especially because Frank Miller, well-known comic author and movie creator, is attached to the Spirit project. Will Supermax: Green Arrow ever see production? How about Jonah Hex? Marvel's floated a metric ton of superhero movie ideas, but outside of Iron Man and Spider-Man, what's going to be able to make it now?

Who was going to do Shazam? That's a property that's simply begging to be a film, although with the trend of making heroes darker for a more adult audience, I would really hope they'd realize the joys in making Shazam! for a younger market. Billy Batson should be every 13 year old boy's hero, and I feel would look appropriate on the Wheaties box.

I'm not sure how much interest will go down in comic-book-to-movie adaptations, more than I think the industry will just swing away from non-superheroes. Spider-man, Batman and Iron Man do well enough that the mindset is likely "Superheroes good, men in suits who fight crime bad." Much like when Elektra came out and failed. The reaction wasn't, "no more comic book movies," it was "no more comic book movies with girls in them."
I fully expect Hollywood to mine for every cape and spandex suit possible while staying away from masked men and mysterious strangers.
Which I supposed means I'm not going to get my Grendel movie anytime soon (I may not think Vertigo adapts well to film, but come on, Wagner was positively built for a crime movie!)

[Linda Lee Danvers]

Celaeno

Who was going to do Shazam? That's a property that's simply begging to be a film, although with the trend of making heroes darker for a more adult audience, I would really hope they'd realize the joys in making Shazam! for a younger market. Billy Batson should be every 13 year old boy's hero, and I feel would look appropriate on the Wheaties box.

Warner Brothers, naturally, though Newsarama reports that it's officially dead in the water now. sad I really feel The Rock would have made an awesome Captain Marvel, too.

Quote:

I'm not sure how much interest will go down in comic-book-to-movie adaptations, more than I think the industry will just swing away from non-superheroes. Spider-man, Batman and Iron Man do well enough that the mindset is likely "Superheroes good, men in suits who fight crime bad." Much like when Elektra came out and failed. The reaction wasn't, "no more comic book movies," it was "no more comic book movies with girls in them."
I fully expect Hollywood to mine for every cape and spandex suit possible while staying away from masked men and mysterious strangers.
Which I supposed means I'm not going to get my Grendel movie anytime soon (I may not think Vertigo adapts well to film, but come on, Wagner was positively built for a crime movie!)

With Hollywood tightening it's belt, I think creators are going to need a really good hook to get the big-budget superhero movie that's NOT a proven success already released. Even Superman's going to have (another) uphill battle at this point.

Maybe Rodriguez's Red Sonja movie will turn out well and turn things around a bit?

[Celaeno]

Kyle Baker Cartoons

Do you have a favorite Will Eisner Spirit story? I've always like the stories with Mr. Carrion.

I'd be hard-pressed to pick one, my exposure to The Spirit comes from borrowed trades.
I tend to like a lot of the stories best where The Spirit doesn't show up right away.

[Kyle Baker Cartoons]

Celaeno

Kyle Baker Cartoons

Is this really what you want to discuss with me now that you have the opportunity?

Would you like to change the subject instead?

The Darwyn Cooke reinterpretation of The Spirit was fairly well recieved universally. While not considered to be abosolutely brilliant in all circles, it was beautifully executed and quite engrossing. Cooke as the artist was a good move, although considering I know what he's capable of from a design and layout perspective I wish he'd push a bit further past the envelope. A little too much playing it safe I think.
Miller's reinterpretation has been pretty panned on the whole though. The film garners 14% on Rotten Tomatoes and it's currently 13 at the box office.

So why has one suceeded and the other failed? Where do you think the major differences lie? Is bad press influencing people for/against one or the other?

I'm not so sure that the comic relaunch garnered quite as much acclaim as people think. It's not making huge sales so it's not really the impressive much-loved book it's being lauded at (holding at around 10,000 last I checked), but it gets a lot of positive press. Press doesn't always get people to pick something up, sadly.
It could very well be the core markets are so hugely different, one being the movie-going public and the other...well comic nerds.

I'm pretty sure that if a movie had 10,000 fans, it would be considered a failure. 10,000 is around the point at which DC cancels titles, unless there is a mandate from the parent company, WB to keep it running to promote licensing tie-ins. That's why Scooby-Doo hasn't been canceled.

Movies need to appeal to millions in order to get their money back. The film DIE HARD was based on a novel, and the protagonist was changed from an old man to a young attractive Bruce Willis in order to make it more commercial. When 300 was adapted to film, they added a subplot about the queen because the book had no leading female characters. Harry Potter wasn't changed much for film, because the books sold millions and so the story was already commercial.

Hollywood tries to package films with as many commercial elements as possible. You need a famous book or a big star to get a bank to loan the studio the millions of dollars needed to make a film. The Spirit is not a famous enough character. The only way that movie got financed was because it had a star writer/director. No Miller, no movie. Not even Sam Jackson is a big enough star to get a movie greenlit on his own. That's why people like Tom Cruise and Will Smith are so expensive. There are only a few people in Hollywood who can actually get a hundred million people to show up. If Tom Cruise had wanted to play the Spirit, he could have shot any script he wanted, even Darwyn's.

I've worked on a number of movies and TV shows for Warner and Disney. The reality of show business is NOBODY has any power. Not even a writer/director. If the star doesn't want to say your dialog as written, there's nothing you can do. If you want a car chase or fight, you need to stay within budget. The biggest reason low-budget superhero movies like the Spirit fail is that the studio won't give you enough money to put in action. In my opinion, the movie needed a car chase and two more fights. But that would cost another twenty million. I would have preferred a star like Cruise or Clooney in the lead, but guess what? They want twenty mil plus percentage of the gross.

The writer and director generally have no power. One director I know had a star leave in the middle of shooting to go into rehab! They had to rewrite and change the schedule to finish the film on time. One star showed up on the set pregnant and hadn't told anyone because she wanted the job. They couldn't fire her, the backers would pull out! SO they shot a movie starring this famous sex symbol and they couldn't show her famous body!

If Frank Miller had said "I want to shoot Darwyn's Spirit". The backers would say, "We paid for the Sin City guy, and it damn well better look like Sin City! Frank's the guy who fought to get Will's name on the posters. He may very well have wanted to do a movie that was faithful to the comic. It wasn't his decision. The people signing the check have all the power.

I'm currently shooting a TV pilot about my family, The Bakers. My wife wants more input, like she does on the comic, and I had to tell her it's no longer up to us. If the network says,"change the girl to a boy," I may refuse, but I'll get fired. I might want the characters to go to China, and the studio might say, an extra location will make us go over budget.

It's a collaborative medium, and the most successful folks in the business are the ones who can get along with people. Hundreds of people are needed to make a movie. Most movies bomb. Most TV shows are cancelled.

I've worked on some hits, and I've worked on some bombs. The bombs don't hurt my career, because nobody knows whose fault the bomb is. So I leave the bombs off the resume, and tell everyone I worked on Shrek and Phineas and Ferb. Can anybody prove my contributions had anything to do with their success? No. Can they prove they didn't? No. That's show biz!

[Celaeno]

Linda Lee Danvers

Warner Brothers, naturally, though Newsarama reports that it's officially dead in the water now. sad I really feel The Rock would have made an awesome Captain Marvel, too.

You've lost me utterly. He'd do that eyebrow thing he stole from Spock. Daniel Cudmore has a boyishly friendly smile.

Quote:

With Hollywood tightening it's belt, I think creators are going to need a really good hook to get the big-budget superhero movie that's NOT a proven success already released. Even Superman's going to have (another) uphill battle at this point.

Maybe Rodriguez's Red Sonja movie will turn out well and turn things around a bit?

Eh, I think they'll hop for just about any comic with a long publishing history and a starting recognition. The irony is...they've just about already done all of those. Which the exception of the Avengers, which they're working on anyway, there's not a lot left with instant name recognition. It's why they were going to attached peripherals for a while (Elektra, Catwoman, characters attached to other characters).
I think there's good potential in, say, a New Mutants film, now that they're already sort of established how the X-Men and their mansion work.
Superman's uphill battle is unfortunate but not a surprise. I say screw it and make a Lois Lane movie. Action packed reporter style movie where the man of steel first appears and she tries to discover who he is, where he's from, etc. I like Lois, despite Smallville's best efforts.

I think if Sonja turns out to be a big hit, they're going to start trying for comics with a fantasy theme and probably mining Vertigo. It could very well be the next big trend anyway. There's the talk of the Fables tv series, maybe next up will be Pixar doing Mouse Guard.

[Celaeno]

Kyle Baker Cartoons

Hollywood tries to package films with as many commercial elements as possible. You need a famous book or a big star to get a bank to loan the studio the millions of dollars needed to make a film. The Spirit is not a famous enough character. The only way that movie got financed was because it had a star writer/director. No Miller, no movie. Not even Sam Jackson is a big enough star to get a movie greenlit on his own. That's why people like Tom Cruise and Will Smith are so expensive. There are only a few people in Hollywood who can actually get a hundred million people to show up. If Tom Cruise had wanted to play the Spirit, he could have shot any script he wanted, even Darwyn's.

I think if Darwyn had done a movie, he'd have produced a better story. I don't know that it would have failed, but I'm nigh positive that any movie he'd have done would have been a direct-to-DVD animated release, so again it would have been a fundamentally different market. It also would never have seen theatrical release outside of late night showings by nostaligic fans.
I'm curious what sort of draw Sam Jackson actually has at this point, since his last sets of movies tend to be floppy. Star Wars, Snakes on a Plane...he does much better work just as a voice actor.
The only other bankroll star I can think of whom you haven't listed is Mel Gibson. This thought makes me dizzy to imagine where he'd fit a Spirit movie.

In the end, while changes have to made in translation, I think the wrong ones were made here. Or perhaps the right ones were taken too far.

[Giabrenna]

Kyle Baker Cartoons

I'm pretty sure that if a movie had 10,000 fans, it would be considered a failure. 10,000 is around the point at which DC cancels titles, unless there is a mandate from the parent company, WB to keep it running to promote licensing tie-ins. That's why Scooby-Doo hasn't been canceled.

Movies need to appeal to millions in order to get their money back. The film DIE HARD was based on a novel, and the protagonist was changed from an old man to a young attractive Bruce Willis in order to make it more commercial. When 300 was adapted to film, they added a subplot about the queen because the book had no leading female characters. Harry Potter wasn't changed much for film, because the books sold millions and so the story was already commercial.

Hollywood tries to package films with as many commercial elements as possible. You need a famous book or a big star to get a bank to loan the studio the millions of dollars needed to make a film. The Spirit is not a famous enough character. The only way that movie got financed was because it had a star writer/director. No Miller, no movie. Not even Sam Jackson is a big enough star to get a movie greenlit on his own. That's why people like Tom Cruise and Will Smith are so expensive. There are only a few people in Hollywood who can actually get a hundred million people to show up. If Tom Cruise had wanted to play the Spirit, he could have shot any script he wanted, even Darwyn's.

This exactly is the problem, unfortunately. If directors can't point at The Spirit and say "See? This did BLOCKBUSTER in the theatre!", then how are other pet projects going to make it at all?

The primary answer I think is Direct to DVD, with restrictive budgets. I've no doubt the Spirit will make it's money back in the DVD market like many other action flicks with lower critical acclaim before it. And both DC and Marvel have seen success with their animated direct to DVD fare. DC's "Wonder Woman" direct to DVD release even has a screenplay written by Gail Simone.

I wonder how well critically the Spirit would have been received with an animated movie done by Frank distributed that way? Of course, logistically there was no way his progression in Hollywood would have gone "blockbuster, blockbuster, direct to DVD cartoon".... neutral

[Celaeno]

Giabrenna

Of course, logistically there was no way his progression in Hollywood would have gone "blockbuster, blockbuster, direct to DVD cartoon".... neutral

I could see it honestly.
Imagine a series of Miller's Spirit vignettes on direct to DVD similar to Gotham Knight or The Animatrix. The very graphic minimal style would work well there.