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PEOPLE & ARTS Wednesday 6 december 2017
Comic-book heroes flock to TV, but why are they so popular?

By FRAZIER MOORE “A comic book is like a TV
AP Television Writer storyboard: visual dialogue
NEW YORK (AP) — When in frames,” Thompson says.
“Marvel’s The Punisher” de- “It’s so perfectly transfer-
buted on Netflix last month, able! Comic books make
it was greeted with great the life of a network devel-
interest and high anticipa- opment executive really,
tion. really easy.”
But it arrived as just one of But none of this accounts
many comic-book adapta- for the apparently insatia-
tions. “The Punisher” is only ble hunger for these shows
the latest in a flood now with which the audience
comprising some 28 shows receives them.
across nine broadcast, “All of it, one some level, is
cable and streaming plat- escapism,” explains Brett
forms, with no end in sight. Rogers, classics professor
Granted, all comic-book at the University of Puget
shows aren’t created Sound. “If I’m watching
equal. ‘Jessica Jones’ for an hour,
AMC’s “The Walking I’m not dealing with some
Dead,” beset by zombies, real thing in my life. But the
differs markedly from the flip side is that comic-book-
teen adventures of Ar- inspired shows can be
chie Andrews on the CW’s spaces for thinking through
“Riverdale” and from Ama- This image released by Netflix shows Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle in “Marvel’s The Punisher,” one some serious questions:
zon’s superhero spoof “The of the many series based on comic books, currently streaming on Netflix. ‘Jessica Jones’ is an oppor-
Tick.” Associated Press tunity to explore sexual vio-
But the majority exists with- lawyer shows. Way back unmistakable. Consider the fect TV showcase for those lence and post-traumatic
in either of two expansive in Fall 1959, more than two CW, where, without “Small- ever-more-eye-popping stress disorder.
brands, not dissimilar to dozen Westerns were air- ville” after a decade’s run, special effects in a way “The comic book industry
Pepsi and Coke. ing on just three broad- no such shows were in its that more realistic cop dra- famously has had to fight
One is DC, which (with the cast networks. That would lineup in Fall 2011. But after mas or sitcoms could never the stigma of being for just
midseason arrival of “Black dwarf the current slate of a subsequent year-by-year be. Meanwhile, the launch for children and idiots,” he
Lightning” on the CW) will comic book shows as a buildup, it will boast seven of more and more chan- says. But as gifted “kids and
be represented by nine percentage of the 500-odd this season. nels, especially streaming idiots” like Joss Whedon
shows on three networks. scripted original prime-time Along the way, comics-re- platforms with their limit- and Kevin Smith came of
The other is Marvel with 13 series airing in 2017. “Com- lated movies proliferated, less capacity, signaled age and made waves by
shows arrayed on six out- ics-related television series while in October 2010, “The an ever-escalating need nurturing a comics ethos
lets, chiefly Netflix, which have always been a main- Walking Dead” made clear to create content. “With across multiple media in-
currently hosts a half-dozen stay of television,” says from its explosive arrival this extraordinary appetite cluding TV, comics gained
of its own. That all adds up Paul Levinson, professor of that a comic-book prop- for source material, de- new gravitas, respect and
to more spandex get-ups communications and me- erty could be a TV smash. cades of comic books of- urgency. “It’s now being
than you’d find in an aero- dia studies at Fordham Uni- By then, the CGI (computer fered material just waiting normalized as shared myth
bics class. But before con- versity. “Now it may seem graphics imagery) that any to be plucked,” says Rob- of mainstream culture,”
cluding that superheroes like they’re all over the superhero show requires ert Thompson, director of Rogers said. “It’s a com-
have taken over the small place. But that’s because had become more sophis- Syracuse University’s Bleier mon myth shared between
screen, it’s worth noting a there’s television all over ticated yet sufficiently af- Center for Television & Pop- readers and viewers, ado-
few things. First, TV has al- the place.” Even so, an fordable for weekly TV pro- ular Culture. Even better, lescents and adults, comics
ways chased trends. Think: upsurge of comic-based ductions. Conversely, su- they’re perfectly formatted and film buffs alike — NOT
cop shows, doctor shows, shows the past few years is perhero series were a per- for turning into TV. just kids’ culture.” q

‘The Vanishing Season’ has precise prose, suspenseful plot

By BRUCE DESILVA girls who were tortured by escape. profiler whose career was
Associated Press a famous serial killer. That So begins “The Vanishing made all those years ago
Ellery Hathaway, junior of- the recent disappearanc- Season,” a debut novel by when he rescued her and
ficer on the police force es all occurred near her Joanna Schaffhausen that put the serial killer behind
in sleepy Woodbury, Mas- birthday. And that some- won the Minotaur Books/ bars.
sachusetts, will do almost one, presumably the killer, Mystery Writers of America But Reed, it turns out, has
anything to convince her has marked each crime First Novel Competition. some personal problems
boss that three locals who by sending her a creepy- Given the precise prose, of his own, some of them
disappeared over the last clown birthday card. the suspenseful plot and stemming from that old
three years are victims of a Telling the whole truth the emotionally tortured case.
serial killer. Almost anything would make everyone in characters, to say noth- Ellery and Reed eventu-
includes sleeping with him. town look at her differ- ing of an irresistible basset ally make things right, of
But the one thing she won’t ently. Reporters who have hound named Bump, it’s course, but only after they
do is tell him the whole longed to tell her story easy to see why. become both suspects
truth: that her real name would pound on her door. In desperation, Ellery seeks and targets of the killer This cover image released
Minotaur
shows
“The
by
is Abby. That as a teen- And she would have to help from the one per- themselves, and after sev- Vanishing Season,” by Joanna
ager, she was the lone relive the horror that she son who knows her secret: eral people in town pay a Schaffhausen.
survivor among a group of spent a decade trying to Reed Markham, the FBI high price.q Associated Press