Legendary graphic novel publisher Denis Kitchen remembers the quiet old days of three months ago, before the phones started buzzing with Hollywood producers. "I used to get a nibble now and then," Kitchen said. "But since Spider-Man, it seems like every producer wants to know what I have."
These are heady times for graphic novels, as the success of a few titles on the big screen has given an entire town an appetite. The last several years have brought an unusual number of graphic novels from the book page to the screen. Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell (Top Shelf), Daniel Clowes's Ghost World (Fantagraphics) and now Max Collins and Richard Reyner's Road to Perdition (Pocket) have all made it into theaters, with two of the three enjoying plenty of success. Spider-Man added the finishing stroke; the 40-year-old character's first whirl at the movies had graphic novel publishers celebrating and producers scurrying. "It's funny how many graphic novelists stand to benefit from something that is only peripherally connected to what they do," said Kitchen, referring to the Spider-Man phenomenon.
There are now several other Alan Moore projects in the works—including cult favorite The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (DC Comics)—and increasing interest in everything comics related, from authors such as Will Eisner to more superhero fodder. "I tried pitching a project based on an Edith Wharton novel and no one at the table reacted," said Hollywood producer Christopher Darling. "But with graphic novels, everyone's interested." He said that graphic novels are to the new generation of Hollywood what prose fiction was to the outgoing one.
Spider-Man hasn't been entirely responsible for the surge. Rather, say experts, the film catalyzed a number of factors that were already in place: producers already preferred graphic novels because they like the ready-made storyboards (easier to sell to their bosses), the built-in fan bases (easier to market) and, perhaps most important, because they suit their own tastes. The comic-book generation, after all, is now in power, even if the old-style pamphlets they recall have given way to book-length graphic novels.
Whether the movie attention will have a huge impact on publishing remains to be seen. The book industry, already disenchanted with thriller sales, now might look elsewhere for its Hollywood feeder projects. But experts say it won't happen very quickly. At the moment, Pantheon and Doubleday are among the few mainstream imprints publishing graphic novels, and two of the biggest non-superhero titles of the past few years—Ghost World and From Hell—were either self-published or published by a micropress.
But as the landscape changes, the concerns for authors about selling out, or living by the Hollywood sword, haven't. "It's reverse buzz, like the stock market," worried Kitchen, whose The Crow, which he published, did fantastically well in Hollywood before The Crow II provided a more sobering experience: "One bad adaptation and suddenly no producer will want anything to do with graphic novels."
In the meantime, cynicism gives way to something else. After all, this is the surreal world of graphic novels, that wonderful place where geeky purism and happy endings can coexist.
