As Seen On TV...

When I was little, the first "grown-up" books I'd ever read were Star Trek tv-tie in novels. I was always a greedy little spaz that constantly wanted "more". More stories involving my favorite characters. More new stuff. The quality could be dubious. it's this mindset that probably led to me becoming a fanfic reader, I'd imagine.

But still for a very long time, I'd read any tie-in novel even remotely related to a television show I liked. I'll still read comic book tie-ins involving my favorite characters (for the record, Denny O'Neil's Hero Quest is a good non-continuity Kyle Rayner story. Christopher Priest's Sleepers, not so much).

Oddly, I've never actually read a lot of comic book television tie-in issues. Which is weird in retrospect because again, quality never mattered so much. But aside from some He-Man and She-Ra issues from way back when, I've never bothered. I still rarely do.

I think in some sense, it's because the tv-tie in books I see at the comic book stores don't seem to fit to me. A-Team and the original Battlestar Galactica, sure! The current Battlestar Galactica...honestly, doesn't seem to suit tie-ins very well.

CSI is one that slightly boggles me. I love the show, but it's not terribly visual, in my opinion. It's more talking than anything else. The moments of actual action tend to be so rare I have trouble even imagining it in a comic form. (Now a computer puzzle game...definitely!). I should pick it up when I go to the store.

This, naturally, got me thinking as to which television series WOULD make for suitable comic books, in my opinion. My thoughts are as follows:

I'm a big cheesy crime drama fan, but honestly, most of the Law and Orders, CSIs, Criminal Minds and the like seem like they'd be really boring as comic books. Too talky and not visually exciting enough.

The one exception to this, I think, is CSI Miami. Where every other crime drama tends to focus on gritty "reality", CSI Miami is more interested in Alligators, Explosions and David Caruso's bombastic line delivery. Now the latter probably would be hard in comic form, but the character is definitely suitably over-the-top in his own right that I could see him working as a comic book lead. CSI:M is much less concerned with things like logic and consistency, and far more concerned with blowing shit up, and thus it has visual, easily pace-able action.

That and you can't have too many comic books with Alligators.

Sci-Fi in general is a very good idea. You can do a lot visually with sci-fi to make it interesting. Battlestar Galactica tends to be an exception for me as so much changes per episode. I find it hard to care about a story set on New Caprica when the fleet's all in space again on the show. Things like Laura Roslin's cancer, Ellen Tigh's scheming and that sort quickly become non-applicable on the show itself. Don't get me wrong, I like BSG, but that sort of thing makes a long-term series hard.

Basically, I think a comic series is best when it's allowed to develop its own self-referential continuity. Something like Star Trek or even Babylon 5 works well with this, because the series has a strong status quo. With a steady backdrop like that, it's easy to let a sub-continuity develop. It's not referenced ever in the show? That's okay, it just hasn't happened yet! Or it's subtextually going on in the background: Riker seemed unaccountably pissy this episode! He must be suffering the fallout from (insert hypothetical comic here). BSG is...too good for this. Things change so quick and extremely that building that sub-continuity seems much more impossible. Besides, the characters are so strung out and on edge already that it's hard to find a way to slam them with more crap. Sure Kara can be losing it partially because of comic events, but more likely it's because of the shit we've already seen...

It just seems limiting to me. Much as I enjoy the show. (I could be wrong of course and the comic could be tremendously good. If that happens, you can put money on me singing a different tune soon enough. :-P)

That said, I'd love to see comics dealing with some of the abandoned Roddenberry series. Andromeda and Earth: Final Conflict had fascinating potential that was never quite realized and were both visually stunning in different ways. There were many aspects of the characters only vaguely touched upon that could be expanded nicely into comics. (I'm still pissed that I never got a "Sandoval, you're my father." revelation damnit!) And as it's canceled now, it seems somehow easier to insert comic book continuity in there. (I suppose because I'm not so obsessed with what's happening NOW)

Also, I think there's a lot of cheesy Xena-esque shows that could make for vastly entertaining comics. The Beastmaster for example. The nineties versions of Tarzan or Sinbad. Relic Hunter or that one with the bleach blond jungle woman. Especially Relic Hunter...completely implausible stories about Tia Carrera the archeologist and her little British sidekick going around and playing Indiana Jones? I'd read that.

Anything that looks like wasted spin-off potential usually would work good, I'd reckon. Especially in horrible shows. Take Charmed for example. I have absolutely no interest in the sisters themselves, but that distant future with the two sons as well as any potential cousins and other siblings? I'd read that. Especially as the younger son seemed to remember coming back in time from an alternate apocalyptic future where his older brother was evil, only to be killed saving his older brother's infant self. And that seems like the sort of thing that would make a sibling relationship weird.

"Dude. You know, in an alternate apocalyptic future, you totally slaughtered my fiancee?"

Yep, I'd read it.

...I suppose it says something about my taste in comics in that I tend to think the more awful television shows would make more entertaining comics than any of the actually GOOD ones. Go figure.

What tv-shows/books/movies do you think would make for good comics?