The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1666: Marvel Spring Special #1, 1988 (Movie Adaptation Week)

In an effort to get back to regular updates, I'm doing some theme weeks. This week we'll be looking at film adaptations. Like novelizations of films, these are always a bit of a dodgy prospect. The comic can't deviate too far from the source material, though there are instances where the comic was created from an earlier draft of a script and features things not in the film. I imagine that artists would also try as hard as possible to give the characters in the comic as much resemblance to the actors as possible, but in a stylized art form, that's not always easy. As such, adaptations can disappoint for not cleaving quite so photo-realistically to the film they adapt.

I've never seen the Elvira, Mistress of the Dark film. Or if I have, there's no recollection of it in my brain. I know of Elvira, mainly because of her prominent cleavage that was in the background of my adolescence, but I don't think I ever watched any of her television shows. For those not in the know, Cassandra Peterson plays Elvira as a late-night horror film host, sort of a sexy version of the Crypt Keeper. She's also featured in comics where she plays a similar role. At some point her popularity must have crested and she got her own feature film. The story is somewhat akin to Footloose, though with a slinky goth/valley girl in the role of agitator rather than Kevin Bacon. The sultry Elvira inspires the youth of the town to overthrow the restrictive laws of the older generation.

One thing that I'm curious about is whether or not each discreet scene in the comic follows the film. I suppose this would hinge on whether or not the artists were able to see the film prior to creating the comic. If not, I imagine that Colon made decisions for each scene that might have been substantially different from the choices director James Signorelli made. I am not, however, going to sit through the film just for the sake of comparison, I'm afraid. The story just wasn't that good.

Join me at the movies again tomorrow, won't you?

"Hey! I've seen "The People's Court"! I'm entitled to one phone call and a strip search!"

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 357: Elvira's House of Mystery #3, May 1986

I never really got Elvira. I mean, I get her. She's got the boobs, and the sassy personality, but I never really got why that character - what was it about Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, that turned so many cranks?

This comic is an interesting take on the character's main claim to fame, her role as host for macabre stories. Elvira herself doesn't really have much to do in these comics, and it really seems like she's been co-opted for her...attributes to sell a few reprint comics. Not that there's anything particularly wrong with repackaging old stories for new audiences. The two stories reprinted in this issue were good, but not great, and though I've said Elvira does little of substance in these stories, she does appear to have a story of her own being told in the framing sequence. Perhaps once she moves on from hosting to starring in later series, the character is allowed to be more than a lithe body poured into a black dress. But until that point, I really still just don't get her.