RUNNING HEAD: Comics Adaptations, Fan Cultures
Comics Adaptations and True Believers: Incorporating the reader's perspective in comic adaptation theory
CarrieLynn Reinhard Ohio State University December, 2006
2 The rise of the fan The recent spate of Hollywood films and television serials that consider themselves "based on", "inspired by", or "adapted from" comic serials and novels has stimulated scholars and fans to criticize, analyze and theorize what is a successful comic adaptation. Truthfully, adaptations of comic texts, especially superhero texts, have been around since the superhero emerged, such as Fleischer's Superman cartoons in 1941 and Hillyer's The Batman movie in 1943. Indeed, Batman, as discussed by Brooker (1999), has undergone numerous representations, both in adaptations and the original text, since his first appearance in 1939, as depicted chronologically in Figure 1. However, serious consideration of these adaptations has only recently begun, due largely to the serious money Hollywood has been making off of adaptations like Raimi's Spider-man and Singer's X-Men. At the same time, adaptations, along with their original source texts, have become serious academic subjects, and I would argue this is due largely to the rise of the fan in positions of power in academia, in Hollywood, and en masse due to the Internet. While the study of comics adaptation is a new field, scholars can turn to the more established scholarship theorizing the adaptation of literary texts into films and television, as this field has been in operation for over half a century. Many of the same issues raised in these adaptations can be found when discussing adapting a comic text. However, there are features unique to comics that require an adjustment as to how to discuss adaptation, both the process and the end-result, and as to whether or not the adaptation is a success. These unique features also suggest the need to consider the role the reader or fan; although seen with some literary texts, reception becomes a
3 further unique feature of the culture surrounding comic texts. Adaptation theory that discusses literary texts has yet to incorporate a reception approach, although it has been suggested numerous times.1 The goal of this theoretical essay is to compare what has been done in adaptation theory for literary texts to see what is applicable for studying the adaptation of comics, both serial and novel, to film or television. To a large extent, the differences require more consideration when discussing a comic as an original source text due to the unique features of the comic and the role of the reader's engagement with the comic text. Previously, in adaptation theory Sarah Cardwell (2002) in her book Adaptation Revisited accounted for the major theoretical trends that have been applied, if only implicitly, in scholars' criticism and analysis of film or television adaptations of novels. According to her historical review, the attempt to understand adaptation began essentially with medium-specific theories that decried any attempt to compare the adapted to the source due to the unique properties of different medium influencing content. In essence, such theorists argued there is no such thing as adaptation because the technological differences between a novel and film make a completely new text only superficially related to the source. In the 1970s, a turn toward seeing medium as having different languages, but with the capability to relay the fundamental meaning, gave rise to the comparative approach. The comparative approach allowed for the idea of adaptations to be considered, because different medium were considered to have signs and systems of signs that served as the basis of comparison for the whats and hows of representation. Then in 1
Suggested by Whelehan (1999), Cardwell (2002), Elliott (2004), Stam (2005). Even as far back as Bluestone's work on medium specific theories did he attest to the fact that the audience for the film may be the same audience of the novel, and thus would have expectations and demands on what they wanted to see in the adaptation (Cardwell, 2002).
4 the 1990s, others have argued for the need to include contextuality and intertextuality when understanding adaptation to understand the impact of sociohistorical and institutional factors, calling for a more pluralistic and cultural studies approach to move away from aesthetic fidelity concerns. As Stam (2006) adds, the current cultural studies approach is less interested in comparing vertically to the original than comparing horizontally to other cultural texts, which again moves us away from direct comparison. As we can see, underlying all attempts at theorizing adaptations, as well as criticizing or analyzing them, is the comparison of the adapted to the source to assess the level of faithfulness or fidelity the latter shows to the former (Cardwell, 2002). However, recent scholars have taken offense at the idea of such a doctrine of fidelity ruling how adaptations are judged, believing such comparisons inevitably lead to discussions of which medium is superior - and as most adaptation scholarship comes from English departments, invariably superiority is granted to the original literary text (Whelehan, 1999; Stam, 2005). To counter fidelity arguments, initially spurred by medium specific theorists, narratologists argued for the comparison of specific narrative elements and strategies to see how the source and adapted compare on these fundamental levels in both their content or functional elements (i.e., what is shown) and their form or descriptive elements (i.e., how it is shown). According to Whelehan (1999), such a minutiae comparative approach clarifies that complete fidelity is not possible because only the content elements can be expected to be transferred from a novel to a film as needed to resemble the structure of the original story. The form elements need to be adapted to fit from one medium to another, and in this type of adaptation fidelity cannot be guaranteed.
5 Others argued for further loosening the fidelity argument to allow for comparing the source and adapted as equals, with strengths and weaknesses unique to each production. In this sense, adaptation is allowed to be the adapter's interpretation of the original, as incorporating only the basic framework, essence or spirit of the original (Brooker, 1999; Cardwell, 2002; Stam, 2005). Elliot (2004) called such consideration for the spirit of the original a psychic concept of adaptation. As the form has to change as the medium changes, the adapter's job should be to capture the spirit or concept of the original's content. Adapting the spirit is considered primary because this transference of spirit originally occurred between the author and the reader and thus should be replicated between the filmmaker and viewer. Elliott also discussed a de(re)composing concept of adaptation, where it is the interpretation of the reader, here conceived of as the filmmaker, that matters because it is the adapter's role of selectivity choose what and how to represent the original text. This approach to adaptation suggests that infidelity concerns may be then just a matter of differing interpretations. 2 One last adaptation Elliott (2004) addressed is useful to mention here because it leads from this discussion of how scholars have theorized adaptation to considering how to apply such work to our discussing the adaptations of comic serials and novels. The incarnational concept of adaptation concerns the extent to which the adapter shows the original text - here focusing solely on the written literary text - in ways that are reliant on less abstract signs. "The words, which merely hint at sight, sought, touch, taste, and smell, tantalize the readers into longing for their incarnations in signs offering more direct access to these phenomenological experiences." (p. 235). This concept is 2
It is interesting how her reference to the interpretation of the reader does not allow for the importance of the consumer of the adaptation, where a good amount of fan discussion about adaptations (as predicted by Henry Jenkins) appears to be arguing about fidelity in terms of differing interpretations. I will come back to this idea later when I discuss the role of fans in adaptation theory.
6 founded on the idea that the novel reader longs to know the content (the setting, characters, etc) as more than mere shadows. In this sense, the novel can provide signifiers of what to expect things to look and sound like, and it is then up to the film to faithfully replicate these expected sensory bits of information. Adaptation should then seek to help the viewer of the adaptation, who may have once been a reader of the original novel, fill in the gaps left by the literary text (Stam, 2005). I end this section with this last theory as it addresses the two main concepts I will use to explore the similarity in adapting comics to film: the sensory information found in the text, and the role of the reader in understanding the text. The sensory, the narrative, and a thing called fidelity If one takes the medium-specific stance outlined above, it seems hard to accept that what applies to literary texts could also apply to comic texts. Yet, there are fundamental similarities between what constitutes a visual narrative and what is experienced with a purely textual representation of a narrative. According to narrative theory, any narrative is composed of two main types of information: the content and the form (Barbatsis, 2005a). These two elements have been described in various ways, but the idea remains the same. The content provides the whats of the story - the events, characters and setting in which the plot unfolds - while the form provides the hows of the story - the description that is the means by which the content is communicated (Elliott, 2004; Barbatsis, 2005a). Comic texts, in as much as they are visual narratives, have both types of information. However, as there is a difference between the two medium, I am introducing new terminology to describe these elements and their
7 interaction, as the differences between comic texts and literary texts will require a more distinctive separation of these terms. For the purposes of this paper, I will refer to content as the narrative level, and will refer to form as the sensory level. The narrative level is composed of those elements that when combined tell a story, what is happening (plot, setting, characters, perspective, etc). The narrative level is an abstraction, like energy, that can only be known by being captured and given some form or structure by the sensory level. The sensory level is our perception of the text's narrative elements, how the narrative elements are displayed for the person to receive/perceive. 3 Consider a text like a window display: the appearance of the elements (composition, size, color, shape, movement, noise, etc) would be the sensory level, while the narrative level is the story told by the way these elements are combined. Changes in the appearance of the display can change a window shopper's "read" of the window display. Thus, the sensory is the narrative embodied; it is the way in which the author has intended us to know and hopefully understand the narrative. In a novel it can be found when considering the author's use of descriptives, metaphor and other language to create tone and mood (Cardwell, 2002), but always it is implied, never directly seen, received/perceived through our sense of sight. The reason I am calling this received/perceived level the sensory level is due to the presence in comic texts of actually knowing the narrative level due to pictorial representations that engage our
3
I am using the combination of receive/perceive based on the division McCloud (1993) highlighted in discussing how it is the reader cognitively engages with pictorial presentations. Because there is some debate as to whether or not it is cognitively possible to separate what we receive as sensory information and what we perceive with our senses as information, I've decided to elide these terms as my main focus is on the reader's interpretation without focusing on the nuances of such engagement at this time.
8 sense of sight. This differentiation between the two medium will become important later in my theorizing. Another similarity regarding the adaptation of these types of texts rests in the use of fidelity as a criterion for success. This particular criterion is often seen in discussions within fan communities that have developed around the source text, be it literary, such as the Jane Austen Societies, or comic. For either case, faithfulness is the extent to which the adaptation's representation of the "facts" matches the source's representation. Here facts are any information from either the narrative or sensory level. Because I have set up the sensory level as the means by which the reader experiences the narrative, both levels have different considerations when it comes to adaptation, especially if the adapter is seeking complete fidelity with the source. These considerations, especially regarding the sensory level, are another means by which comic texts are different from literary texts. However, before continuing on to the differences, now is a good time to address the main theme of this essay: the role of the reader, in particular the fan, in adaptation. As texts can be separated on these two levels, issues of fidelity need to address these two levels - changes in how something is represented for our senses to receive/perceive would then impact how we interpret the narrative aspect of this information. Hence we need to understand the role of the reader. "When we say an adaptation has been 'unfaithful' to the original, the very violence of the term gives expression to the intense sense of betrayal we feel when a film adaptation fails to capture what we see as the fundamental narrative, thematic or aesthetic features of its literary source." (Stam, 2005, p. 14). When we engage with a novel, we are developing
9 the sensory level in our mind, using the hints provided to us in the text, and in this way the narrative plays out "on the private sound stage of our mind" (p. 14) With a novel then, it is hard to know what the adaptation is supposed to be faithful to on a sensory level, because the information in the sensory level is distinct for each person. However, with a comic text, we are given the sensory information in the form of pictures and text and here's where we break from being able to make similarities. Differences as a foundation for something new There are a number of reasons to consider comics adaptation different than literary adaptations, but for the purposes of this theorizing I am focusing on a certain subset of reasons that all coalesce under the difference seen in the sensory level between the two texts. It all begins with the prevalence of the sensory level in comic texts, be they serial or novel. Novels essentially only have to worry about the narrative level for adaptation when it comes to fidelity - the hints for the sensory level can be taken for guideposts, but are predisposed to the subjective interpretation of the adapter. In a visual narrative, the narrative is known by the way the images and sequences of images are composed (Barbatsis, 2005a); that is, by the form, perceived by us visually, that the story takes (Lefèvre, 2000). Not only does a comic provide information for sight, but there is also suggested information for sound and movement. Considering only this basic nature of the sensory level of comics, comics adaptation is first different from literary adaptation due to the iconic nature of comics. The use of visual icons and symbols to represent the narrative level means that what is being represented is more explicit and comprehendible. Because seeing is believing, and with comics we are more able to see the story, we can possibly find it easier to
10 recognize references and fidelity regarding comics adaptations than literary adaptations. There is an abundance of sensory information that can be objectively agreed upon as representing the narrative. This can provide a dilemma to the adapter of the comic text. While the narrative level may be able to transfer across medium, the medium can exert influence on the sensory level due to the technology used for transmitting the information (eg., does the medium allow for transmitting sight, sound, movement, etc?). Hence, the medium most directly influences the sensory level, but because it is the sensory level that we need to know the narrative, the narrative must change to accommodate, or at least it will be received/perceived and interpreted as having been changed. And thus we come to a problem for adapting a comic because changing the sensory level can deconstruct the underlying narrative (Elliott, 2004). Changes on a sensory level can become a larger issue when considering the role of the reader, which we will come to shortly. Before doing so, there is an aspect of the narrative level of comic texts to consider: the serial nature of a large amount of comic texts versus the graphic novel. A serial text means that adapting a multipart narrative, such as a superhero text, into a two or perhaps three hour movie necessitates dropping or changing narrative elements to fit the square plug into the round hole. While the sensory level of The Batman can remain consistent in an adaptation (as seen in Figure 1), it is not possible to transpose the nearly seven decades of stories and characterizations into one, two or ten movies. Oddly enough, at the same time, there may be more flexibility with serials because, as they are told over decades, the changes in the sensory and narrative levels are more acceptable and even expected. To remain fans of serial comics, they must
11 accept changes made to acquire or keep an audience, and over time readers come to expect the same flexibility with adaptations as adding to the mythos - especially if the history of text is fraught with contradictions, parallel universes, multiple versions, etc. Again, see the representations of Batman. Brooker (1999) argued that as the versions of Batman changed in comics, viewers were more accepting of the different versions of him in film and television. However, when it comes to a self-contained story in comics novel, such as From Hell, there isn't the same flexibility on the narrative level; and this inflexibility extends to self-contained stories in serials that become benchmarks or major stories within the canon, like X-Men's Phoenix Saga, Batman's Knightfall, or The Death of Superman. An adaptation of such a self-contained story would have to consider the expectations of the fans for what is known to exist in both the sensory and the narrative level - which explains fans' negative reactions for the attempt to adapt the story of the Dark Phoenix in X-Men: The Last Stand. The impact of the sensory level can result in an embodied representation of the narrative level elements that is apparent in a self-contained story, and can be further heightened by a serial narrative. As with a television series, where a viewer comes to associate a certain character with a certain actor, a reader of a comic can come to associate a certain image - as iconic as Superman or as a character sketch as Inspector Abberline of From Hell - to be a primary means to know the character or setting or whichever narrative element it represents. Of course, this embodied representation can be easily seen on a visual level, but it is also hinted at in comics for movement, posture and sounds. Sound cues are given in comics. We may not actually know what "snikt" or "bampf" sound like because they are not sounds from our
12 experiences with reality; but a reader's knowledge of English phonetics - of how letters sound when combined - provides a way of making sense of these sounds and thus expectations are formed. In a serial narrative, there is some flexibility for this embodied representation to change as the narrative changes. However, with a self-contained story, such as a comic novel, what you see is what you get - there is only one representation that the fan comes to know and thus expect. The ability for the comic to create embodied representations then impacts what can be done for an adaptation. Hark (1999), while talking about television texts, makes an observation that is logically extendable to comics adaptations: an ideal adaptation would retain the expected sensory representation while placing the characters into new narratives within the same diegesis. This level of fidelity is suggested because the fan entangles the narrative and sensory levels of information in their conception of the character and story, and they come to expect the same sensory indicator to cue that they are experiencing a similar narrative. Carrying over a faithful adaptation of the embodied representation serves as a guidepost to help the fan adjust to the new narrative constructed in the adaptation. Each of the steps I have outlined to show the differences between literary and comics adaptations, while focusing on the sensory level, also implies the importance of considering the reader. These two things are inextricably connected because the structure of the text can impact the reception of that text (Barbatsis, 2005b), and the different features of the medium can impact the structure of the text (Christiansen, 2000), on both sensory and narrative levels, which then invariably leads back in to the reception of the text by the reader. Adaptation then, while considering how the medium
13 can impact these two levels, also needs to consider how these two levels are being engaged by the reader, because the engagement varies across medium. A novelist only has words to work with, which requires sight and high cognitive processing, and that means very active engagement is needed for the words to become visions in the mind's eye. A filmmaker can present reality via sight and sound, creating the illusion of movement and three dimensions, and so can be more passive in engagement. A comicist uses both words and pictures to suggest sound and movement, and in doing so falls between the filmmaker and the novelist in what level of engagement is needed (McCloud, 1993; Christiansen, 2000; Schudson, 2006). And thus we have come to the clincher, what may truly make comics adaptation different from literary adaptation - the presence of the fan. A comic text requires and engenders an amount and type of engagement from the reader that is not found in literary texts. True, in a novel, the reader is not given images by which to know what Elizabeth Bennett or Mr. Darcy look like, but we cannot be fooled into thinking that a comic book version of Pride and Prejudice requires less active engagement than Austen's written text. There is just as much cognitive processing going on, and perhaps more, as with a comic there is blank gutter space in which actions occur that may be described in a written text. But perhaps even more important than the form of engagement is the creation of fan cultures or communities around comic texts, both serial and novel, and to a larger extent around the medium of comics themselves. While there are small examples of this in the literary world, there is no exact parallel with comics fandom. And in just the presence of the hordes that call themselves True Believers does adaptation theory need to consider their roles in comics adaptation.
14 The importance of the True Believers Brooker (1999) argued that those who insist on close fidelity will continue to be a minority, little regarded by the studios that have to sell their product to the larger audience. However, nowadays, studios are working to court and cultivate fandom. They are attending conventions like Comic-Con to unveil a new film, show or video game, or they are sponsoring message boards at their official websites like the producers of Heroes, or they are creating Internet media specifically for fans who want more during the summer than reruns of Lost. Because of the Internet, with websites like Aintitcoolnews.com, a minority can become very powerful and potentially grow into a majority. "The idea of appealing to the fans, of the fans having a legitimate stake in the production of superhero films, has become commonplace in the marketing buildup to the release of films..." (Coogan, 2996, p. 5). Studios and others involved in the adaptation process realize the responsibility they have to the fan who is going to spend money to see the movie, potentially several times, buy the DVD, and any other ancillary marketing goods the producers have licensed to offset the cost of production. Of course, this is no different than how the media industries have ever seen the fan (Harris, 1998); only perhaps now, with the rise of the fan in academe and the industry itself, the market is being treated with more respect. The importance for considering the fan also comes from the realm of academe in the form of reception theory. To approach adaptation from a reception perspective would remove the scholar's or critic's comparison of source and adapted, and instead focus more on the audience's interaction with adaptation, the process and the endresult, as it is in audience that the final meaning of the adaptation resides (Barbatsis,
15 2005b). According to Stam (2005), a reception theorist would approach adaptation by considering the adapted text as an event in and of itself - the interaction of the reader with the adapted text would thus be comparable to the reader's interaction with the source text for purposes of understanding how the reader made sense of this interaction, not so much out of concern of fidelity. According to Henry Jenkins, fans have a distinctive mode of reception that is highly purposive and even ritualistic, as seen in the lines of fans that would wait all night to buy a specific game system or see a certain movie (Jenkins, 1992; Staiger, 2005). Using a reception perspective also allows us to understand the role of the fan culture in the process of adaptation through the creation and interaction of interpretive communities or communities of meaning, which are central to understanding fandom (Barbatsis, 2005b; Staiger, 2005). As mentioned previously, comic texts, especially those that are serial in nature, can foster an expectation for a particular embodied representation. Coogan (2006) argues that comics adapters should focus on adapting the comic's resonant tropes. He defines resonant tropes as those elements that are "familiar and repeated moments, iconic images and actions, figures of speech, patterns of characterization that have resonance; that is, they embody or symbolize some aspect of the character, and have gained this resonance through repeated use by the storytellers." (p. 7). Tropes then occur on both sensory and narrative levels and can be used to embody the representation the fan expects to be adapted. Additionally, the iconic nature created by the sensory level is culture based - it is not personalized like the interpolation from a novel - and thus it is easier to get objective agreement within the fan culture if
16 something is faithful on the sensory and thus narrative level. Violations to sensory expectations, with attached violations to narrative, can result in rejection. Violations to expectations can be especially hard for those who see the source text as important to their self constructings (Grossberg, 1992). An individual could use their fandom of a text to create their sense of self, and in particular use those iconic and embodied representations to express things they see in themselves, or things they would like to see: "...some individuals may seek to express their otherwise silenced identities through a common interest in a symbol, icon or text, and, then, redress their alienation through the social nature of fan practice." (Harris, 1998, p. 5). Indeed, fan theorists have argued that in a fragmented society, fandom provides one way of building identity (Jenson, 1992). "People are constantly struggling, not merely to figure out what a text means, but to make it mean something that connects to their own lives, experiences, needs and desires." (Grossberg, 1992, p. 52). If the fan sees the source text as important to their sense of self, the fan could be protective of the interpretation of the text, especially as true believers take their fandom seriously (Staiger, 2005). As fans process the movie-going experience, they preferentially focused on aspects of particular interest to themselves. If those parts of the movie work...then the fan is willing to accept or rationalize flaws in the rest of the film. If, on the other hand, the movie happens to fail at a key focus point...the fan will respond with anger rather than a willingness to rationalize the film in an acceptable configuration. (Bacon-Smith & Yarbrough, 1991, p. 109). The original source is categorized as something we love while the adaptation may not be worthy of that love (Stam, 2005). As fandom associated with mass media texts grew more widespread over the 20th century, fans began to show their love for their texts and solidify their fan identities by organizing social communities. Ever since the rise of the Internet, these fan
17 communities have found an available and interactive forum that has allowed them to increase their presence in the mass media world from whence they sprang. As a member of several LiveJournal and YahooGroups, I did a quick tally of communities and individuals who expressed an interest in one or another comic text. As you can see in Table 1, with just these two locations, there are scores of people who indicate that they are fans of comic texts that have already been adapted or texts that are in the process of being adapted. All of these online locations are thus possible places for discourse regarding the adaptation, with the potential for influencing the financial success or ruin of the adaptation. And for every vocal fan, we can also say there are other fans not as vocal or devoted to that particular text, but who may be influenced by those who are vocal. Bacon-Smith and Yarbrough (1991) described four types of fans in their ethnography of 1989 Batman movie: long term fans (readers of source texts used to judge hype, promotion & movie); short term fans (less direct experience with primary source texts, used other texts to fill in gaps); fans of TV series (used promotional material to fill in gaps); and non-fans (attended because was a movie event, a blockbuster). Those who are not long term fans may then be listening to those long term fans that have now moved online and created such forms as Aintitcoolnews.com, whose founder Harry Knowles, where once he was a pariah, is now regularly contacted by movie studios to help spread good hype. From the keyboards of fans Thus we come to the point where we are saying, okay, fans feel comics are important to them and that they can be very vocal about their love of these texts. But we can also say that fans all have different opinions about what a good or bad comics
18 adaptation is, because they all have different interpretations as predicted by reception theory. How then can a fan provide insight into adaptation, either the process, the endresult or even the theory? Is Brooker right in discussing Burton and the studio's response to fans - that a vocal minority must be sacrificed to attract the larger populace? Is there anything that fans are saying that can be useful for adapters? In fact there is, and it mirrors what some adaptation theorists have already been saying. I visited several online message boards that featured this discussion and posted the question to Yahoo! Answers and several comics research groups I belong to, all in an attempt to hear what fans actually think when it comes to adaptations, either in general or for a specific text. Fans do recognize that there will be differences in the adaptation due to the transferring from one medium to another. "It's hard to cram decades of story into 2ish hours of movie, even if you get 3 movies to do it in." (Highway Dave, ComicBookMovie.com). But fans agree with those who argued for adapting the essence of the text. "I think being faithful to the source material goes a long way. ...you have to look at the heart of the character or story, and translate those elements to film, like in Batman Begins or V." (geejtopia, Yahoo! Answers). They even understand the financial considerations the studio has to make in adapting what may be a comics text the mainstream audience is not familiar with. "Since some people don't know the characters you have to introduce them and change them a bit to be more acceptable, and fit in a movies timeslot. So as long as you keep their general attitude/mannerisms, and don't throw them into some scenario they wouldn't be in the comics, it usually turns out pretty good." (whiteouteyes, Yahoo! Answers). Bacon-Smith and Yarbrough (1991) viewers of the 1989 Batman movie, who were Batman fans, complained because it failed to build on the canon of character
19 development and relationships fans knew - such as the history of The Joker, and other fans of other adaptations agree. "I think as long as they don't stray too far from how the characters actually act in the comics and what their origin is its fine by me. I don't want to go to the movies and see a story I've read maybe a hundred times." (nvm, ComicBookMovie.com). As Henry Jenkins once said, fans are cultural critics to the same extent academics are, or try to be (Staiger, 2005). In fact fans may be better equipped to make these critiques because they are insiders; they know the texts being adapted better than academics unless the academic happens to be a fan herself. In fact, this insider status comes up again when fans discuss what makes for a successful adaptation: an adapter who is an insider is better received by the fan communities. "In adapting a comic, filmmakers have a responsibility to fans to be loyal to the source material. Creative license always is granted to a filmmaker, but one must not get carried away." (Cox, 2005, online). Other fans agree, saying that comics adaptation works best when the adapter is a fan who has respect for the source text. "The Spiderman did good because director Sam Raimi had a love of the Spiderman series." (greyroamer42, personal correspondence) "Every hand involved in a movie has to have understanding and respect of the origin of the adaptation." (C., Anime & Manga Research Circle) "I think one of the key elements is that there has to be a love for the original behind the new adaptation. You can tell when someone understood what made the original or the characters themselves what they were." (M., Anime & Manga Research Circle) An adapter who is also a fan or at the very least respectful of the source material can provide a sensitivity to that is important to fan, and may also share a similar interpretation, possibly by being a member of the same fan community, and can also be more likely engage with fans to ensure a dialogue about their interpretations.
20 According to Coogan (2006), earlier adaptations of Batman and Superman were from people who did not pull much material from the original sources and did not have the same attachment to the superheroes as the fans did. Today's adapters, on the other hand, show respect for the original sources, which started with the hiring of Superman fan Richard Donner, who argued against the camp the producers wanted and managed to get into Superman II, which has now been re(un)done by Donner. On the other hand, Burton was not a fan of comics, and was very vocal about his disconnect, which may have further exasperated fans' reaction to his adaptations. Singer, while not a fan, knew how to add inside jokes to his X-Men films for the fans to enjoy while not making the films impossible for non-fans to understand. Schudson (2006) even argues that Guillermo Del Toro's adaptation of Hellboy was analogous to a work of fan fiction because it explored peripheral characters and relationships while remaining faithful to the source text because his changes were based on evidence he read in the source. Hollywood now realizes it needs to pay homage to the decades of comic lore and the source text itself, and thus by extension the comic fan. Fans today continue to embody all roles of the adapter, from director (Sam Raimi) to writer (David Goyer) to actor (Nick Cage). Towards a reception-centered comics adaptation theory Bacon-Smith and Yarbrough (1991) said comic book movies represent comic book fans to the mainstream. The film adaptation, because film is a more socially acceptable medium and pastime, legitimizes the character, the comic book (as a medium) and the comic book fan (as a pastime and identity). If the industry wants to continue to make financially lucrative comics adaptations like Spider-Man and avoid
21 economic implosions like Catwoman, then it would be wise for the adapters to consider the role their intended audience has in the adaptation process - to seek the counsel of those fans who by being fans will either constitute the most likely consumers of the adaptation or who's vocal reactions to the hype of the adaptation could sway those with less devotion. I started this theorizing by considering how comics adaptation compares to literary adaptation. And while both are concerned about the fidelity of adapting the sensory and narrative levels, it is in comics that the sensory level becomes paramount, especially as it relates to the expectations engendered in the comics fan. So the first conclusion I draw from my theorizing is that the adapter of comics must recognize that complete fidelity on both narrative and sensory levels is not possible. Even if the adaptation is animated, the suggested sound and movement in a comics sensory level will not be interpreted the same way as the enacted sound and movement in the animation (Schudson, 2006). And while certain expected embodied representations or resonant tropes should be addressed, like making sure Batman always has his chest emblem, pointy ears cowl and batwing cape (Figure 1), the fan, and by extension general public, expects and allows a certain amount of leeway on other sensory and thus narrative elements - especially for serials, but also to an extent for novels, given the transference across medium and technologies. But at the same time the adapter should maintain the spirit of the original text and not create an adaptation of sensory or narrative elements that has no connection or cohesion to what was already seen in the source canon. Fans don't seek the same engagement with the adaptation that they had
22 with the source text, but they want a resonant or additive engagement, and not one that is discordant or subtractive of what they saw in the original source. Adhering to the spirit of the original source also means paying respect to this material, and this leads to the second conclusion I have drawn from this theorizing. Probably the most important type of fidelity the adapter should seek is not to the content or form of the comics text, but to how important the entire text is regarded by the fan community. An adapter should treat the source material as something important, not as something frivolous unless that was the original's intention (e.g. The Tick). Because fans oftentimes associate with comics texts that are in some way important to their sense of self, showing respect to the comics text is also a way of showing respect to the fan, to reassure the fan that he or she is not considered to be engaging in something unimportant. To do this, it is best to have someone involved in the adaptation process that is a fan of the source material being adapted. In the same way having a translator can smooth international business negotiations, having someone who is a member of the fan community can help open a dialogue that can result in fans' expectations and interpretations being treated as seriously as the fans view them to be. Comics are a special case in the United States due to their historical and social perception as being for children, and thus those grown-ups who like them are seen as being odd. For a long time fans were not considered as important as the texts they consumed - the texts could produce some money, and the fans were just the saps that provided the money. But as those "saps" grow into positions of power, we begin to see these social perceptions shifting to the point where fandom is being taken more seriously by the outsiders, by the "normals". Novels, films and television each had to go
23 through a similar process of legitimization, and in all cases we have only seen in the last decade or so the rise of the fan or reader, through reception studies, as an important consideration when discussing media texts. Now is perhaps an ideal time to consider the fan when discussing adaptation, as it is another place where reception of the source and adapted texts can shed light on what is a successful adaptation. As Becker (2005) put it best: "Fans are simply extremely enthusiastic members of a general audience, and they tend to want filmmakers to act as their representatives in the Congress of their dreams." (p. 18). If the role of the fan or reader is taken into account when considering the adaptation process and the adapted text, then perhaps their representatives will be more democratic and less plutocratic.
24 References Bacon-Smith, C. & Yarbrough, T. (1991). "Batman: The ethnography." In R. E. Pearson & W. Uricchio (Eds). The Many Lives of The Batman: Critical approaches to a superhero and his media. New York, NY: Routledge, Chapman & Hall Inc. Barbatsis, G. (2005a). "Narrative theory". In K. Smith, S. Moriarty, G. Barbatsis & Kenney, K. (Eds.) Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, methods and media (pp. 329-349). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Barbatsis, G. (2005b). "Reception theory". In K. Smith, S. Moriarty, G. Barbatsis & Kenney, K. (Eds.) Handbook of Visual Communication: Theory, methods and media (pp. 271-293). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Becker, R. A. (2006). The crisis of confidence in comics adaptations: Why the people who make comic books and the people who make movies don't believe in the superhero myth. Presented at the 14th Annual Comic Arts Conference, July 20-23, San Diego, CA. Brooker, W. (1999). "Batman: One life, many faces." In D. Cartwell & I. Whelehan (Eds). Adaptations: From text to screen, screen to text (pp. 185-198). New York, NY: Routledge, Chapman & Hall Inc. Cardwell, S. (2002). Adaptation revisited: Television and the classic novel. New York, NY: Manchestor University Press. Christiansen, H. C. (2000). "Comics and film: a narrative perspective." In A. Magnussen & H. C. Christiansen (Eds). Comics and Culture: Analytical and theoretical approaches to comics (pp. 107-122). Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. Coogan, P. (2006). Superhero: The secret origin of a genre. Austin, TX: MonkeyBrain Books. Cox, C. (2005). There are keys to successful comic book adaptation. The Advocate-Messenger, retrieved online on November 14, 2006 from http://www.amnews.com/public_html/?module=displaystory&story_id=14277&format=html. Elliott, K. (2004). "Literary film adaptations and the form/content dilemma." In. M.L. Ryan (Ed.) Narrative Across Media: The languages of storytelling (pp. 220-243). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Grossberg, L. (1992). "Is there a fan in the house?: The affective sensibility of fandom." In L. Lewis (Ed.) The Adoring Audience: Fan culture and popular media (pp. 50-65). New York, NY: Routledge, Chapman & Hall Inc.
25 Hark, I. R. (1999). "The wrath of the original cast: Translating embodied television characters to other media." In D. Cartwell & I. Whelehan (Eds). Adaptations: From text to screen, screen to text (pp. 172-184). New York, NY: Routledge, Chapman & Hall Inc. Harris, C. (1998). "Introduction theorizing fandom: fans, subculture and identity. In C. Harris & A. Alexander (Eds.). Theorizing Fandom: Fans, subculture, and identity (pp. 3-9). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Jenkins, H. (1992). "'Strangers no more, we sing': Filking and the social construction of the science fiction fan community." In L. Lewis (Ed.) The Adoring Audience: Fan culture and popular media (pp. 208-236). New York, NY: Routledge, Chapman & Hall Inc. Jenson, J. (1992). "Fandom as pathology: The consequences of characterization." In L. Lewis (Ed.) The Adoring Audience: Fan culture and popular media (pp. 9-29). New York, NY: Routledge, Chapman & Hall Inc. Lefèvre, P. (2000). Narration in comics. Image & Narrative, 1, p. 1-10, retrieved online on August 24, 2006, from http://www.imageandnarrative.be/narratology/pascallefevre.htm. McCloud, S. (1993). Understanding Comics. Northampton, MA: Tundra Publications. Schudson, A. (2006). Cover to cover: Translation and adaptation in Sin City and Hellboy. Presented at the 14th Annual Comic Arts Conference, July 20-23, San Diego, CA. Staiger, J. (2005). Media Reception Studies. New York, NY: New York University Press. Stam, R. (2005). "Introduction: The theory and practice of adaptation." In R. Stam & A. Raengo (Eds.) Literature and Film: A guide to the theory and practice of film adaptation (pp. 1-52). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Whelehan, I. (1999). "Adaptations: The contemporary dilemmas." In D. Cartwell & I. Whelehan (Eds). Adaptations: From text to screen, screen to text (pp. 3-20). New York, NY: Routledge, Chapman & Hall Inc.
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Table 1. Number of online communities, LiveJournal and Yahoo! Groups, and individual LiveJournal members indicating an interest in a particular comic text. LiveJournal * Comic Text Yahoo! Groups** Communities Individuals X-Men 169 403 462 Superman 48 401 444 Batman 46 403 462 Spider-man 53 375 425 Fantastic Four 19 150 432 Watchmen no specific devotee 32 462 Iron Man 3 65 376 The Hulk 13 51 408 Wonder Woman 104 168 427 Doom Patrol 2 18 135 Teenage Mutant 53 228 436 Ninja Turtles * The numbers represented here for LiveJournal should not be considered to represent mutually exclusive cases as one member may have indicated interest for more than one of the listed comic texts. ** Yahoo! Groups were selected based on the title of the comic text being included in the name of the group, as defined by the search parameters of Yahoo! Groups.
Fig. 1. - The Batman through the years, in comics, film and television from Kane's original to most recent renditions