Graphic novels have proven to be a great source for film and television. Some of them—Batman, Spiderman, and Superman, for example—have been around for decades. They’re tried and true brands. They’ve been made into moves since back in the twenties. They’re going to be made into movies a hundred years from now.
What’s new is that more independent comic books are finding homes. People are looking beyond DC and Marvel, big players who make amazing books and amazing movies. They’re looking at places like Image Comics, for example, which is a very different kind of business model for comics and graphic novels. It’s much more creator driven. A lot of our clients have had a lot of success with companies like Image, where they’re able to control the editorial and marketing of their work. The creators themselves are the ones who are at the steering wheel here as opposed to the big corporations. Men in Black was a small, independent comic, and so was Walking Dead. One of our clients, Doug TenNapel, who’s done a lot of stuff independently, is now working with Scholastic to do books like Ghostopolus, which has received a lot of critical acclaim.
There are different kinds of homes for different kinds of projects. I think the one thing film and television executives love about graphic novels is they can see them. Film executives are trained to read differently from book editors. Film people work in a visual medium first and foremost. When you look at a graphic novel, it’s like looking at the storyboards for a film. You’re able to be immersed in a world in a much more visceral way than when you’re reading a manuscript. The visual component of a graphic novel is immediate and visceral. That’s something a lot of Hollywood executives appreciate.