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Underground > Comic Books >

Remakes in comics:

19:26 / 20.05.02

Something frequently seen in the film world is the remake, where an old film is recycled or reimagined for a new audience. This practice has rarely been seen in comics but this story seems to make a watershed as Gary Leach remakes the art for the warpsmith stories he did with Alan Moore.

So what do people think of the idea of remaking comics? And what key storylines would people like to see remade with different creators.

And New X Men is wayyyyyyy to obvious - lets think back into comic history a bit for this one...

08:13 / 21.05.02

oh and i should add that the warpsmiths also appear "on loan" in miracleman

08:52 / 21.05.02

You just added that to bump the thread (it was in the link).

I actually think its a good thing. Any of the companies could go back and clean up some of the old stories to be represented as trades. Imagine the Invisibles with good art at the end. Maybe Morrison could rework some parts and sweet talk Quitely into redrawing the whole thing. Or 80s and 90s X-Men comics rescripted to remove all the stupid ideas and unresolved plot threads that piled up over the years. Screw the fanboys and the idiots that think they need to reprint every fucking thing that ever happened in the monthlies. Cut the crap, treat the monthlies like rough drafts. Sounds good to me.

The Natural Way

11:09 / 21.05.02

The rewriting thing's already going on in the 'Ultimate' titles. Most of that stuff's based on established continuity w/ the belly fluff removed.

14:52 / 21.05.02

Interesting. Presumably Gary still has Alan’s scripts to work from ?

Was the third part of the ‘Warrior’ story actually completed, does anyone know ? It’s a tad unclear from the report – I would have thought it probably would have been bounced at the script stage, from the sounds of things ? Just curious.

As I recall, when the original Warpsmith story was reprinted in colour (in Eclipse’s Axel Pressbutton issue 2, if memory serves), there was a story that Gary had made the art more ‘colour-friendly’ by scratching large amounts of the blacks off a film of the original art – assuming this story to be true, I guess this has also gone astray ?

As for the wider implications of it, dunno. I remember Will Eisner re-inked a page of his Spirit work in the mid-80s when Kitchen Sink was reprinting all his post-WW2 Spirit work, and the original inked art couldn’t be found, though I think he made as few changes as possible. So I guess it’s not entirely unprecedented, though Gary’s talking about doing something far more substantial here (no problem with that – he’s a fine artist, and I’m always happy to see his work, and with a Moore script, even one I’ve seen before, I’d be churlish to complain).

DBC

16:41 / 21.05.02

I really like the idea...Remember that Spanish Alan Moore collection i showed you a few months ago Sleaze?...Similer thing..In this case 5 or 6 Spanish artists re-made some of the short pieces Moore did for Negative Burn and others...The result was facinating comparing the two...also showed up some distintive European/American styles...

I like the idea of two or more artists working from the same script simultaniously without seeing the others work...an experiment which would also be facinating in film...the idea of David Cronenburg and David Lynch both being given a copy of 'Naked Lunch' and a budget at the same time would be great...

17:23 / 21.05.02

I remember Marvel made Spider-Man Chapter One which supposeddly was a remake of the first issues with same dialogues and new artists, but I maybe wrong. Whatever the case, I didn't like it.

Marvels, also from Marvel, may also count as a remake, depending on what we mean by remake, and its really good.

And I think all the Ultimate titles from Marvel fit the definition of remake "where an old film/story is recycled or reimagined for a new audience" pretty well. Even for myself, who could never stand The Avengers, I am deeply involved with The Ultimates, of which I strongly believe it is and will remain for a time as the cutting edge of super-hero comic book (I just hope this may not prove wrong).

I vote for a re-drawing of Invisibles. I actually vote for two remakes: one entirely drawn by Quitely, and other entirely by Jimenez. And for New X-Men, I am dreaming one day they'll come and say: hey gals, while Kordey and Sciver were covering Quitely he stayed at home drawing all the issues also, here they are in a single book, but I'm afraid I'll have to warp to another universe to see this happen.

Another title that definitely deserves a remake -not a re-launch or re-vamp- is Black Panther. There is a lot of potential in that story of how he became king. I would make it creepier, even more hidden, and more alien, very alien to western eyes. You know, in Panther there is this concept of his country being the more technollogically advanced in the world, but then they have just deployed technology for the same interests other nations have: army and weapons, public transportation and all that crap we know pretty well. I would conceive them as able to do things aliens are supposed to be able to do, space-time travel, telepathy, and mix it with a lot of techno-sorcery abilities, in the midst of a strong lovecraftian flavor. In this sense, Panther would be the ultimate african king-sorcerer. This would justify for me a lot better Panther's suit.

And now I am returning from the land of would-never-be-comics.

18:13 / 21.05.02

Grant Morrison's script was adapted by two different artists in the Born To Be Wild charity book for PETA. Sadly I lent mine out and it never returned and I can't remember the two artists.

Eddie Campbell touched a lot of the Bacchus and Alec stuff up when he reprinted it recently.

Thinking about it, the small press creators do this a lot, in that they usually add stuff or fix stuff in the collections to expand the story telling. I think Jessica Abel is just pulling something, and then there's Jeff Smith's rejigging of the Bone collections. I know that's not quite what you mean though Sleaze.

Don't they retouch the colour on recent reprints of old stuff, I'm thinking of the archives from DC here, although is that more akin to issuing a fresh print of a film?

I do agree with Bio, it's an excellent idea. Am I the only one put off the Frank Miller Daredevil books because the art is pretty bad?

What about All Star Comics, was it, that was Roy Thomas redoing the golden age taking Crisis into account, wasn't it? And James Robinson on Starman did a little bit of retelling too, didn't he? And as well as the Ultimate stuff, there was the Heroes Reborn thing that Marvel did, wasn't that again a retelling?

18:14 / 21.05.02

Just a posit. If Zenith ever gets reprinted, it would be nice to have Steve Yeowell draw the two 'chapters' he didn't actually draw first time around.

yawn - thing's buddy

08:33 / 22.05.02

eh?

09:19 / 22.05.02

Zenith is already reprinted - Titan just can't sell the reprints yet because of ontract difficulties between Morrison and 2000AD (basically titan entered into an agreement with 2000AD to reprint it and did so then morrison asked where his slice of the money was - pointing out that he never signed away any of his rights on the character - until some kind of deal between morrison and rebelliuon, the new owners of 2000AD can be reached [and rebellion seem to be in no hurry to resolve matters] titan's reprints are going to just sit in the back of a warehouse in granthem)

The Natural Way

09:37 / 22.05.02

Block: I second Yawn's "eh?" and add a "what are you talking about? Yeowell drew the whole thing..."

16:28 / 22.05.02

Ghadis, any chance of gettin' some of those Alan Moore adapatations online? I would love to see 'em. (prob'ly a distinct improvement on the yankee versions in most cases.)

18:51 / 22.05.02

Sleaze, it's only the first book that is sitting in a warehouse, as you say there seems to be no hurry to sort the mess out, and there were no confirmed plans for the rest of the stuff to come out, so I stand by my if it ever gets reprinted. Still, I think I'm getting petty, and it's best to rehash for people who might not know.

For Yawn and Runce?

There were two interludes of Zenith not drawn by Yeowell, interlude 3 was a Maximan story in the 2000ad winter special by Carmona and interlude 4, shadows and reflections by Jim (Brendan) McCarthy.

yawn - thing's buddy

19:34 / 22.05.02

you gotta respect the Block!

I need to see/read thesae tales you talk of...

wow!

The Natural Way

07:45 / 23.05.02

Yes, whyfore have I not viddied these saucy gems?

Block wins.

Babality.

13:52 / 23.05.02

Ria...No idea whether they are online or not. I'll dig it out to get some of the artists names and do a search.Failing that i could scan a couple of the better ones in and e-mail 'em to you.

16:29 / 23.05.02

yes, please! better yet post online for many to see.

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

22:04 / 23.05.02

They shouldn't get new artists to redraw Invisibles.

They should get the same artists back, and NOT LET THEM LEAVE UNTIL THEY'VE FINISHED THE PAGES PROPERLY.

Danny

08:03 / 24.05.02

Back to the topic...

What do people think of the new alternative version of Epire strikes back soon to be released by Dark horse - interesting re-make or cynical manipulation to milk the fans for more cash?

13:59 / 24.05.02

Sleaze, is that the ‘Infinities’ version of Empire ? The kind of ‘what if’ version of it ?

I think it might be a trick to get more money out of the fans, but I guess it’s hardly unprecedented in the SW field (hell, the whole of Phantom Menace was pretty much an exercise in getting money for old rope, but don’t get me started on this; I’m with Tim Bisley from Spaced on this topic), though if you’re a fan, you might be interested. I think they did a version of ‘A New Hope’ in this way, and I guess it must have had an audience to get a sequel lined up. Not that that’s necessarily any kind of measure of greatness, but you know what I mean…

I’ve been thinking about the remake thing, and I suddenly remembered a retouch that had to be done on the Batman Year Two trade paperback; in one panel, Todd McFarlane had drawn the killer of Bruce Wayne’s parents retrieving the gun that shot them from a nearby bush, when it had previously been shown (in issues drawn by Davis and Farmer, IIRC) that in that situation, it was Wayne himself. Corrected in the TPB (I presume by the same artist?), and makes one wonder exactly how Todd had got that so very wrong, really.

And didn’t someone here say that Bryan Talbot had tinkered with the art, and even the page sequences, of some of Luther Arkwright when it was reprinted ?

Hope this doesn’t count as threadrot, apologies if so, but it’s generally the fixing and not the wholesale remaking that springs to mind. Oh, and someone mentioned Spider-Man : Chapter One, which I gather was John Byrne’s re-doing of the character’s origin. Which, if memory serves, was badly received by purchasers and critics alike, and has been as good as ignored since Ultimate Spider-Man hit the racks.

DBC

02:56 / 17.06.04

I just ran across this old thread and I have no idea what was going through my head when I posted last time. What a horrible fucking idea (except for the X-Men part)!