Influence of Comics and Graphic Novels

Abby: Sara!! I haven't seen you in like 18 hours!

Me: Kinda busy right now. I need to somehow connect my English 1A presentation to my blog.

Abby: Well, what's it about?

Me: It's about the effects of comics and graphic novels on movies. They basically defined the modern genre of an action-oriented blockbuster film. Think of The Avengers. It grossed over $200 million in just 3 days in the US. Comic books basically set the bar for what is considered a blockbuster movie. Ironically though, comic books' sales have decreased since the 1990s. Lately, the comic book industry has been used as a character licensing business.

Abby: Do comics and graphic novels influence anything else?

Me: Thinking about it, lately some video games have been influenced by graphic novels. The Walking Dead, for example, originally started as a graphic novel series made by Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore. Since its release in 2003, several other forms of media based their style off these novels, such as the popular AMC TV series and Telltale Games' video game.

Abby: I get why transferring the novel into a show seems like a good idea, but a video game?

Me: Actually, Telltale did an excellent job at producing their Walking Dead game. It won several "Game of the Year" awards as well as "Best Writing" and "Best Adapted Video Game" in 2012. Telltale is also coming out with a another video game called The Wolf Among Us, which is being released into 5 different episodes. This game is also based on a graphic novel series called Fables written by Bill Willingham. The art style in these games seem very influenced by the typical graphic novel illustrations. There's also obviously the comic book influenced games such as DC's Injustice or Marvel's Deadpool. So clearly, comic books and graphic novels influence not just films, but also video games to convey a message.

Abby: You seem to know a lot about these games. Why don't you ever go outside for once?

Me: Good question.