Tagged: Genre
Superhero Novelizations for 2008
With the summer super-hero blockbusters come the inevitable novelizations. It used to be almost every movie from every genre would receive the prose treatment but with time, that has been winnowed dramatically. These days it appears just the genre films get the attention and not even all those receive a book.
The blockbuster, tent pole films for 2008 will be receiving not only novelizations but tie-in and spin-off books galore. One, Speed Racer, does not have a novelization but a ton of related books for the younger audiences.
Here’s a look at the 2008 novelization list, in order of film release, with some rather familiar names attached:
Iron Man by Peter David
Speed Racer, none scheduled
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by James Rollins
Incredible Hulk by Peter David
Wanted, none scheduled
Get Smart, none scheduled
Hellboy II: The Golden Army by Robert Greenberger
The Dark Knight by Dennis O’Neil
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, unknown
The X-Files 2, none scheduled
Punisher: War Zone, none scheduled
Star Trek, unknown
Romance! Action! Prose!
It used to be, the most successful comic book heroes would eventually wind up in prose. These days, with superheroes fully integrated into mainstream America, it’s no surprise that several novelists have taken their own, unique looks at the genre. Already this year we’ve had the well received Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman and Perry Moore’s Hero. It’s no surprise, then, that the romance genre would also introduce their own take on the subject.
Long-time comic book fan and one-time DC Comics staffer Elizabeth M. Flynn, writing as Ellis Flynn, has produced Introducing Sonika. The novel is an eBook, available from Cerridwen Press as of December 13.
According to the publisher, “Sonika is actually 28-year-old Sonya Penn, a Gen Y gal working hard as a physical therapist in order to pay off the enormous medical bills that remained after her parents’ deaths. Like so many of her generation, her career has left her no time for romance. But unlike so many others like her, the medical bills she’s working hard to pay off were incurred when her super-hero parents were killed by their arch-nemesis, Gentleman Geoffrey.
“Sonya could hardly know that when she met her newest client, he would not only turn out to be John Arlen, the heir to an engineering fortune, but that he, too, was injured by a super-villain.
Hero Squared coming to a close
Ian Brill, a man who calls himself the Earth-Prime Jimmy Olsen and who clearly hasn’t seen the shirts at the DC booth at WonderCon, reports that Hero Squared is coming to a close, according to BOOM! Studios head Ross Richie, who also says "this will be the last word for J.M. DeMatteis when it comes to the superhero genre."
Marc, Marc, Marc… don’t you know that never is a very long time in the span of the eternal cosmos that is but a metaphor for the mind of the infinite… er, just never is a long time.
Riding high at the box office
Ghost Rider, based on the Marvel Comics series, dominated the box office this holiday weekend, opening at $44.5 million according to studio estimates. The movie took in over twice as much as its nearest competitor, the Disney movie Bridge to Terabithia, based on the Newberry-award winning book by Katherine Paterson.
This was Hollywood’s biggest opening so far this year, and the best opening weekend ever for comics super-fan Cage, beating his previous $35.1 million debut for National Treasure. This showing bodes well for the movies’ continued association with comic book properties, which are still pleasing audiences despite critics’ misgivings that "the genre" is on the way out.
Someond tell them comics isn’t a genre, it’s a format! Sheesh.