http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainmen ... ovies.html3 of 4 stars
Starz takes a look at comic-book movies
Tuesday, June 10th 2008, 4:00 AM
Spidey (Tobey Maguire) drops in for a kiss with Kirsten Dunst in the first 'Spider-Man' movie.
COMICS UNBOUND. Tuesday at 10, STARZ.
It's a running gag among comic book writers today that they have become "the research and development arm of Hollywood."
Like most gags, it's funny because it's somewhat true, and Starz examines the phenomenon Tuesday in a documentary that explores the long, though at times shaky, relationship between comics and the cinema.
These days, comics-based films like "Iron Man" and "300" seem to make hundreds of millions of dollars just by showing up. To the untrained eye, they're the cash cows that keep Hollywood's bankbook healthy while it tries to remember how to make, say, a decent romantic comedy.
But as "Comics Unbound" points out, few things are guaranteed in the movie game. So any filmmakers who figure they can just order up another "Spider-Man" might want to remember "Superman III" or the George Clooney "Batman," both of which crashed and burned.
On the positive side, "Hellboy" creator Mike Mignola points out, comics are gift-wrapped for the movies. They already tell a story through both words and visuals. They tend to be economically structured, without the florid side trips or subplots that novels often incorporate.
And if the comic has even a cult following, it has brand recognition and a built-in audience.
The movies started flirting with comic stories in the 1930s, using short, cheap productions. But when the great comic book witch hunt of the early 1950s made comics radioactive, about all that survived was the ultrawholesome "Superman" TV series with George Reeves.
Today Reeves' Superman looks preposterous, through no fault of his own. His successors had the benefit of modern animation and imaging techniques that enable characters to look as natural on-screen as on a comic page.
That, in turn, has encouraged Hollywood to shell out bigger budgets, meaning bigger stars and more promotion.
The modern explosion started with 1978's "Superman," "Unbound" suggests, after the connection was kept alive through campy stuff like the 1960s "Batman" TV series, Ralph Bakshi's racy "Fritz the Cat" film and even Jane Fonda's "Barbarella."
Today, with comic books and their cousins the graphic novel becoming an ever-more-respected corner of American literature, it's a safe bet the comic hits will keep on coming.
"Comics Unbound" doesn't offer any revolutionary or radical theories on how comics got from there to here. It does a solid job of explaining how technical, literary, cinematic, sociological and marketing forces all came together to take over a big chunk of America's movie screens
