When Anita Blake Says "Arise and Serve Me," It Could Mean Any Number of Things

[quizzicalsphinx.livejournal.com]

Lock up your sons! Chris from the ISB is back with another issue of "Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter: The Laughing Corpse: Executioner", a title that never fails to amaze me with its sheer number of colons.

Let's talk editing here. Chris points it out, and I agree: this comic has been going on for thirty-one issues now, and there are still massive dialogue panels explaining what, exactly, Anita is doing--made even more insulting to the reader by the fact that Anita also tends to explain things we've just seen to the other characters, who I can only assume are meant to be readers-by-proxy. Overall, it has a feeling of speaking down to the audience, as if LKH assumes that her readers are so dumb or her prose so lofty that she must have frequent "YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?" moments to let us catch up.

Likewise LKH does not seem to realise that comics have, um, pictures. That, or she is overly thrilled by her own deathless prose and seems to feel that no reader can understand the true flavour of the original novel if the comic does not incorporate vast chunks of narration. By now, one would think that LKH would understand this medium, considering how deeply she has involved herself with the editorial process of this thing.

In other AB:VH:tLC:E news, Linkara, comic reviewer at That Guy With the Glasses, promised viewers an Atop The Fourth Wall review of the Anita Blake comic a while back. It's going to be interesting to see how many of his criticisms run parallel with Sims'.

Comments

[loupgaros.livejournal.com]

YES! I want Linkara to get a good look at this :) I am looking forward to this.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

OH THANK GOD. This whole comics thing has been an absolute disaster with the Laughing Corpse adaption taking seventeen months to be released. Yeah, issue one came out back in October 2008.

And! Now they've just got Circus of the Damned to go! I have no idea if they're going to do three more books, but after drawing out Laughing Corpse to ten issues too many, I live in dread and anticipation of many lulz. I have to go through the Laughing Corpse and see what panels I can photoshop to make them...less boring.

ETA: okay, now that I've read everything, I can reply to that "LKH does not seem to realise that comics have, um, pictures." part -- there was a podcast interview that I found not too long ago where she ranted about how there's no point in doing an adaption unless it's 100% faithful to the source. She got legitimately angry about the idea that someone may change her works in order to suit a visual medium, and this is one of the reasons why she signed up with Dabel Brothers (before AB:VH comics were bought by Marvel) because they let her have that level of control/veto over what was going on. I'm pretty sure it's also one of the reasons why she pulled the plug on the telemovie. So, unless you're willing to transcribe everything directly from the novels just as she intended, you don't get to play in her sandbox.

Whcih is a pity, because I maintain that if the comic people were allowed to do their jobs and didn't have to run everything past her for approval, a) we'd get issues out on a more regular basis, and b) we wouldn't have to sit through fifteen agonising issues of one book. But noooo, it all has to go through LKH, who has zero comics background and is learning how to "see" stories in comic form rather than as a book.

[lady-fellshot.livejournal.com]

there was a podcast interview that I found not too long ago where she ranted about how there's no point in doing an adaption unless it's 100% faithful to the source.

See, I have fits over this kind of things. It is possible to get something that is really good without holding true to every letter of the original. For that matter, sometimes running in a different but similar direction of the original results in better entertainment for everyone.

I wonder if LKH clings to her verbiage because she's terrified that her stuff doesn't say the things that she really wanted it to and that someone will see it and create something based off it that is much better than she could ever achieve.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

Not to mention, it puts a huuuuge restriction on the director/artists that are adapting this in that they can't even put their own stamp on things. Wow, way to quash other people's talents in one fell swoop, Laurell.

At this rate, I don't think there will ever be a telemovie/tv show, simply because she can't cut the cord. Screw this whole, "My characters are my friends but they don't have voices of their own so I have to speak for them, I have to stand up and say no! This isn't good for us!" thing, she just needs to flat out admit that she's a control freak and this scares off anyone from wanting to work with her. Given how popular Vampire Diaries and True Blood are, LKH just shot herself in the foot by pulling the plug.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

You know, all these "thou shalt not edit me" and "adaptations of a loved text should be identical to the original" stuff reminds me of me. When I was 15.

LKH & Editing

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

"Likewise LKH does not seem to realise that comics have, um, pictures. That, or she is overly thrilled by her own deathless prose and seems to feel that no reader can understand the true flavour of the original novel if the comic does not incorporate vast chunks of narration. By now, one would think that LKH would understand this medium, considering how deeply she has involved herself with the editorial process of this thing."

Some authors, even pros, are hell to work with because they can not stand to cut their poor little baby novel up. LKH is very clearly one of these based on the lack of editing in her latest books and her attitude about it in her blogs. So it comes as no surprise that she's unwilling to cut stuff out of the comic or reword it to take advantage of the pictures.

Re: LKH & Editing

[yaoihuntresse.livejournal.com]

Also she cuts the action so short because she thinks we'd rather listen to Anita blah, blah, blah.

[yaoihuntresse.livejournal.com]

The sad thing is that the zombie battle had some good moments if I didn't have to wait so long and the comic didn't talk down to you that I no longer cared. The story could've been done in ten issues at the most.

Man, I can't wait to see Linkara's review of it.

[x-trickster-x.livejournal.com]

Can't wait for Linkara's review! Should be awesome.