Blog Post 13: Comic to Cartoon Adaptations
One of the most common sources of idea’s for animation, is that of comics. Because both are sequential art, the adaptation is rather easy, oftentimes the character designs and personalities are already there and all one has to do is create a story. This practice is a very effective way of generating new cartoons and has been used since the 1910′s, with animations of Little Nemo and Krazy Kat. Though adapting comics to cartoons is simple in some ways, however, it also requires a lot of thought in odrer to make a proper adaptation.
When adapapting a comic into a cartoon, one very important choice that needs to be made is how much the cartoon should resemble the comic. There are multiple avenues in which one can perform the adaptation. The most simple of these is to do a direct adaptation of the source material. This is a common practice in Japan with many serialised manga. The creators of the animation usually just lift the plot straight from the manga making only a minimal amount of changes. The drawback to this method is that they may run out of ource material for a while, forcing the animation studio to generate new content to fill in the time gaps, and this material usually isn’t very good. This method also does not work well for turning newspaper style comic strips into a half-hour television show as what may work in a 4 panel strip may be ineffective for a 30 tv show.
Another method is to create stories from scratch. This oftentimes is the better way to go. It may require more out of a studio to write up a good script put it can pay off immensley if done right. This allows the writers to take more liberties and can make things more enjoyable for those familiar with the source material as it doesn’t show them what have already read in the comic.
Both methods can also be combined however, and that can be a good compromise between the two styles of adaptation. Whatever method one is using however, it is important to pay careful attention to how the comic is being adapted. Just because the idea is already there doesn’t mean you don’t still have to use your creativity.
This week I commented on Samntha Francis and Bonnie Hansen’s blogs.
I believe the only true way to adapt comics to cartoon or live-action is to keep as true to the art and the story as possible. If it made such a great comic then in turn it should make a good show. Of course, that isn’t always the case because of the process of adaptation.
I would think it difficult to find someone to agree that comic to film adaptations are simple in any regard. True, comics do act as a sort of storyboard for the film, but there is so much more than that. A comic exists; it simply is. The panels are there on the page for the reader to view at his own pace. True, visual composition is important, white space, clutter and all that. In film, however, timing is everything, on top of visual composition, sound, performance, score, and a whole host of other complications. That being said, comics are still a great reference for a film adaptation
I agree. I think the only way to adapt comics into cartoon or live-action film is stay true to the story. It pisses people off when the adapation is different from the “real” story.
The first spider man was (in my opinion) the best, and I noticed while watching it that they made it very comic book like. Some of the scenes and were purposely corny and had a very comic book feel even though it was live action. Once they started to stray from this, the movie quality started to go down.
Your post is pretty much entirely correct. I think though, that it is possible to take a comic/cartoon and change the format or story a bit just to keep it fresh or make it different. It would be possible to completely stick to the story presented in the comic, but it would limit a franchise in terms of further expansion.