Comics Fondle

As anyone looking for the effect of Spider-Man box office grosses on Marvel Comics’s Spider-Man comic sales can tell you tell, movies and comics–though both visual storytelling mediums (though, aren’t chapter breaks and white spaces in written fiction also visual cues), they don’t have much in common. I had no idea, going in to The Black Diamond Detective Agency, it was based on a screenplay. I might have had my expectations adequately adjusted if I had. Black Diamond is fine, but there are a handful of scenes just rip for the rousing score and for Brad Pitt to shoot out the room. Eddie Campbell doesn’t photo-reference stars in to the comic, which is rather nice, given how often it happens in Marvel and DC series, but it’s still obvious what scene we’re watching… sorry, reading. And the Brad Pitt casting was just process of elimination.

Other significant storytelling problems include the absence of a narrator. There’s Brad Pitt, who’s a fugitive for some of it, so he’s not really the lead. There’s the head of the detective agency, then there are a couple of the detectives who talk about what the future will bring (with uncanny accuracy ). It’s just not a particularly interesting story for comic books. Campbell’s most impressive page is an establishing shot of Chicago. Stunning page, I’d love a print. But the story itself is standard, maybe even just a grounded version of a discarded League of Extraordinary Gentlemen idea.

None of the characters have any weight. Campbell’s style doesn’t lend to immediately recognizable characters–and since it’s supposed to be a movie, we’re supposed to remember when… Matt Damon pops in for a couple cameos. The Brad Pitt character is boring and annoyingly mysterious. The most important thing about the character isn’t discussed, so everything else involving him comes off as fluff. He’s the suspect who turns detective who can shoot nine men in a two page spread.

Given the story’s plot details, it’s obvious this screenplay either came about because of Gangs of New York or was revised because of it. Campbell does pretty well with what there is to work with, but it has–essentially, not exactly–the same ending as Beverly Hills Cop III, which is amusing on one hand, but incredbily sad on another.

C

Technorati Tags: Black Diamond Detective Agency, C. Gaby Mitchell, Comic Book, Eddie Campbell, First Second Books, Review

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