The Future Still Comething

Talking about Mark Millar's opinions and predictions of hollywood and comics (see Dan's recent blog "The Future Cometh"), its true that hollywood has had some strong effects on the comics industry, but I don't think its building up to an industry-wide bust from all of the talent being farmed out of comics and into movies.

Sure, there's a lot of money in hollywood, and that'll attract a lot of creators. But its never just handed over. Movies are huge collaborations, and the producers and investors and studio and stars and caterers will all be pushing and pulling at the production. Of course the same thing happens in comics, but on a MUCH smaller scale. Point is, if you've got a story you want to tell, its a lot easier and cheaper to tell it in a comic. The best testament to it happened this week as Terry Gilliam (Brazil, 12 Monkies, Brothers Grimm), one of my favorite directors, announced he'll soon be working in comics. This is awesome and makes loads of sense. Gilliam, despite his genius and considerable success, has had some of the worst luck in hollywood. So much that there's a documentary (Lost in La Mancha) about his seemingly cursed film-making. So now he's taking all of his unused scripts and handing them over to the fellows at Virgin Comics (joining Oscar winning director Shekhar Kapur, John Woo, Guy Ritchie, and Nick Cage). Among Gilliam's projects, is a continuing series based on Time Bandits. Cooool.

I guess what I'm saying is comics has its place. People will come and go, and I don't think all of the talent's just going to up and leave at the same time. And if they do, fine. Then maybe I can sneak in and get a job.

-Nick