Alan Moore hates film adaptations. He has lost millions because of this stance: his films get adapted by Hollywood despite his protest, and the films make millions of dollars at the box office. But his financial loss isn’t the interesting part. Rather, it’s his principles behind this. He believes the graphic novels he writes to be unfilmable (and that’s why he sold the rights in the first place, thinking they would never happen). Hollywood takes his “unfilmable” graphic novels and treats them like storyboards, building movies off his creations.

The end result is, according to Moore, a watered down version of what he originally created. A stance he takes, interestingly, without ever watching one of the films adapted from his graphic novels (Boucher). This hate Alan Moore has for film surprises me. When I watched V for Vendetta and Watchmen, they stuck in my consciousness like my first kiss; when I read the graphic novels afterward, the experience was akin to my first viewings. Surely both the graphic novels and their film adaptations hold the same form of magic power inside, so why does Alan Moore mean by his claim that they are unfilmable?

How drastic can the mode of consumption change a narrative? If the adaption contains the same characters, plot, and theme, how can a viewer/reader come away from the story with any less of an impacted mind? A story is a story, and a powerful one will transgress their forms. So why is it that Alan Moore hates his film adaptations so much? I aim to find out if he being stubborn, hating an entire medium for no reason, or if his ideas have merit that can be backed up with academic discourse and primary source analysis. Graphic novels and films are separate vessels for content, but it’s a vessel which requires largely the same method of drinking from: From visual literacy to narrative format, the two mediums share so many similarities that they are more analogous of each other than they are different; while graphic novels lack motion and sound, they compensate with gutters, text, and abstract iconography.

The visual literacy required to critically read a graphic novel is the same toolset required for critically watching a film. To get specific, let’s look at a frame composition from the Watchmen film adaption and compare that with a frame from the original graphic novel.

This is a frame capture from the directors edition blu- ray (Watchman 2009). The mise-en-scène of this shot can be deconstructed to find visual elements underlying the narrative: Look at the rails on the side. They’re forming a line to the suit; the suit is dominating the scene. By framing this almost as long shot with the side rails, the shot is composed so the eyes go from left to right and skip over the hidden-in-shadows Dan. The visuals of this scene are reinforcing the literary elements that the narrative are playing up: Dan Dreiberg is just a shadow of Nite Owl. The two images—that of the sad man sitting and the emotionless costume standing—is creating a visual conflict that readers draw meaning from (Bockman). Because Dan is, literally, in the shadow of his Nite Owl costume, a reader will realize that the character misses what he used to do. The lighting here is strongly creating symbolic qualities. The towering suit is angled above the camera to show the power that the suit has just not over Dan, but us as viewers also (Connors). Now compare everything we just said about that shot with this panel, taken out of Book one of Watchmen:

Everything said about the frame composition from the movie can be said about this panel from the graphic novel. It’s almost a literal recreation; something rather common in the Watchmen adaptation. For after all both film and graphic novels are visual mediums. They both require visuals to construct the story.

Looking at the similarities in a still image, it’s easy to see that creating a mise-en-scène that reflects the narrative requires the same toolbox. Not does it take the same skills to create as an artist, but also to critically analyze and find meaning in as a reader.

And so far nothing is lost in translation: the level of analysis is the same; the level of reader/viewer engagement is the same. So if nothing is getting lost at a frame/visual level, there has to be somewhere else that the two mediums differ to create the hate living in Alan Moore. And things do change from here.

Film is, after all, not a still image (when viewed as it was meant to be). A film consists of thousands of still images, shown to an audience at 24 frames per second on a canvas that does not move. This adds a dimension of two distinct characteristics for film that is not present in a graphic novel. First, motion can be clearly shown/perceived in film due to the speed and number of images. Second, time of consumption for each frame becomes forced for the audience as the frames per second is as static as the canvas it’s shown on.

Motion happens so clearly in a film. It’s easy to get lost in the images, in the motion. It’s easy to forget that what is being shown is a cascade of still images, broadcast at a constant rate. The viewer’s eyes can watch the movement of a hand in film go from point A to point Z, and every spot between is seen. The eye see twenty-eight still images in two seconds and the mind stitches the pictures together, creating the movement. The images not shown, the space between the 24 frames per second, is practically non existent. Compare this to the frames between a graphic novel:

Image used without permission. Don’t show Scott McCloud this essay, please.

In the sequential art that creates graphic novels, and we can use the above image as a reference (taken from Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud), the motion is not shown as distinctly as in film. Panel 1 would be the hand at point A and panel 2 would be the hand at point Z; the motion is only shown in two frames, as opposed to the 48 frames it would take film. The reader still constructs the movement happening in these frames though. The difference is that the movement happens in the space between the two panels, in the gutter of the images. The reader uses “closure” to construct the motion between panels in the their mind(McCloud). Readers are going to use reasonable closure to figure out what happened between the panels, too, it’s important to say. Just because every single second of the movement wasn’t shown doesn’t mean that between the two panels our character went out, got ice cream, ate it all, and came back to then put his hand there. So movement does exist in graphic novels, just like in film.

The movement in film is more obvious to the viewer. It is easily recognized as realistic and overt: there is no space in between the frames that something else could have happened than what is shown (unlike in the above carton where that man in the hat was definitely getting ice cream); graphic novels on the other hand compensate for their lack of movement with closure that creates movement in the readers head. This, it would seem, proves that graphic novels require more interaction from the reader. The reader, after all, has to imagine what is happening between the panels.

Film has closure too, though: think of when two characters are walking and talking in a scene, and then the camera edits to a difference scene. The same characters are now sitting and talking in a different location. The viewer is going to create closure in their mind: a viewer will not think that it’s two years later (unless there was a verbal/visual cue); they will realize what happened in the space between the shots. The viewer will construct closure between scenes in films just like gutters in graphic novels. But this isn’t called closure when it happens in film; it’s called “suture” (Pratt). Despite their difference in name, it’s clear that graphic novels and film are equal in the respect of perceived motion; both mediums require the viewer to think about what is happening in the narrative that is not shown.

But there is a difference between the two. For film to create closure, it has to induce forced time into the equation. Films exist in a temporal space that is fixed: the film is always the same length, no matter what mood a viewer watches it in. This is different than graphic novels because, in a graphic novel, the reader creates the pace at which the narrative is consumed. The reader can lingerie on a every image that is presented for however long they may wish. This can lead to a different level of meaning prescribed to each image, which can result in a different level of interpretation ascribed to symbolic images. Time in a graphic novel, therefore, is dictated by the reader.

In a film however, the viewer may not pause the film in a theater. The amount of time any given frame or image is shown is dictated by the director (Pratt). Sure, the director of a film can hold a long shot on a certain image, hoping that the viewer will internalize and analyze the literary value (the intended imagery/symbolism/metaphor). But this does not give the viewer control over how long to linger, nor does it remove the fact that this is still 24 images every second. And, for a director to have to do this, to have to point attention to something for the audience, this method seems like “spoon feeding” the audience, which is what Moore dislikes about film so much. But does this technique not exist in graphic novels?

It does! Check it out: A graphic novel artist can also use this trick. It’s all about the frame composition; The aspect ratio, size, and content (ie: sounds, dialogue) of the panel affects the time a reader will spend with the image. Consider:

This panel composes 2/3rds of page 29 in volume 3 of Watchmen. It is infinite. It is seemingly infinite to the reader, at least. The lack of time is portrayed in this image because it is very large, it lacks a gutter, and there is no dialogue or sounds. All very distinctive rhetorical devices that Alan Moore uses to let the reader linger on an image, just as if he’s a director holding a 20 second shot on a static scene.

The opposite can happen, too. If an artist has a series of five slim panels all right next to each other, a reader is going to fly through those panels, consuming the images in a very quick fashion. This is like quick editing in a film. Again, this is something that Alan Moore does in Watchmen:

The lack of any text lets the reader consume the images quickly; the reader will consume and discard the images as fast as their eyes can. So even though movement works differently in film and graphic novels, they both aim for the same thing: the reader/viewer picking up quickly on the intentions behind the image presented, and the importance and time that the reader/viewer should ascribe to each image.

We’ve talked a lot about visuals—from composition of a frame, to motion in gutters—but there is an element of film not yet talked about; it is an element that, like motion, is not overtly present in graphic novels.

Film has sound. It has actual noise that enters your ears and sends signals to your brain. I’m not just talking about diegetic sound (you know, the sound that is associated with the visuals [cars starting, people talking, beer bottles being broken]), but also the non-diegetic sound: music and soundtracks(Pratt). This is a film convention that can submerge a viewer even deeper into the narrative; soundscapes are 50% of a film, even though their use is largely unnoticed by the audience. Their power lies in this subconscious manipulation. Sound adds a second layer of meaning on top of the narrative; it is completely unique from graphic novels in this sense. Sound is also a strong way to dictate pace in a film, just like we talked about earlier with length of shots (Smith).

For example, in the opening sequence of Watchmen, Bob Dylan’s “The Times are a’ Changin’” plays over a montage of the first generation of heroes. Zack Snyder, the director of Watchmen, might be doing this to add a layer under the narrative that the viewer can construct congruently in their minds. The song, mixed with the visuals of old-time photographs and revolutionary moments, evokes a sense of, well, change. So did we finally find something that film has that graphic novels don’t? Nope! Because graphics novels have text that readers create as sound in their heads! There are three different types of text that can represent sound in a graphic novel: first, there is are thought bubbles which have dialogue; second, there is general narration (which would act like a voice over in a movie); third, there are sound effects. Ka-Boom! (Pratt)

But all this sound in a graphic novel, sound that a reader creates in their head, it doesn’t make up for the lack of a soundtrack. So there is the major difference between film and graphic novels; a film has the ability to manipulate viewers by using sound. Graphic novels compensate for sound by using dialogue, narration, and sound effects but still lack a subtle soundtrack. This would be the biggest difference between the two mediums, the only difference where compensation between the two aren’t comparable. This would be the case if it wasn’t for iconography. While iconography doesn’t make up for sound, it does add a dimension to graphic novels that lacks in film.

In comic books and graphic novels, the level of detail in the drawings can be lowered. A realistic drawing of a face can go through many layers until it’s simple cartoon. The only thing an image needs to be seen as a human is a set of eyes and a mouth: :). See? That emoticon looks nothing like me. But you can imagine me making a face like this 😀 because I’m laughing as I put emoticons in my academic paper. The idea is that the less details a face has, the more universal it is to an audience. Instead of “othering” the protagonist in a graphic novel, I’ll find myself in them when the level of detail is low enough. This is because I clearly can’t see that it’s not me (McCloud). And this is distinctly different than movies; I know I’m not Brad Pitt. The level of realism in a movie is a constant: it’s photorealistic because it is a photo. And it’s getting more and more realistic as technology progresses: 4k films, higher frame rates, and 3D innovations are only leading to more “othering” from an audience to an actor. This realism leads to a better looking product, but one that is losing connection to an audience. “The surface is enhanced, but the image is emptied,” (Reynolds 130) is the way Reynolds puts it in a paper analysing the adaptation of V for Vendetta. When iconography disappears, the ability for an audience to easily place themselves in the action goes with it.

So what does it all come down to? I set out to discover if graphic novels and films require the same level of interpretation to critically engage with. I used Alan Moore as a proxy for the counter argument: I wanted to prove him wrong, if only so he could watch the greatness that is his film adaptations of V for Vendetta or Watchmen. And the thesis holds up, I think: Graphic novels and films are separate vessels for content, but it’s a vessel which requires the same method of drinking from. Graphic novels lack motion and sound, this part was obvious from the start. But after looking at how a graphic novel can compensate with gutters and text, it should also be clear now that there aren’t any extremely large differences in the two.

The biggest differences are the use of soundtracks in film and the use of iconography in graphic novels, both of which are techniques deployed by their respective medium to extract emotion and engage the viewer/reader. The perfect medium would then be the mixture of the two: and that exists! Motion comics, or digital comics, is a growing medium. If these utilized motion and sound along with iconography, then they could be the ultimate form of media. And they are in fact growing. For good reason, we now know.

Works cited.

Bockman, Derek. “Pictures Are Worth Like … A Lot More Words, Ya Know?.” Film Matters 3.2 (2012): 3-8. Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text. Web. 1 Nov. 2013.

Boucher, Geoff . “Alan Moore on ‘Watchmen’ movie: ‘I will be spitting venom all over it’.” Hero Complex movies comics pop culture Los Angeles Times. N.p., 18 Sept. 2008. Web. 1 Dec. 2013.

Connors, Sean P. “Toward A Shared Vocabulary For Visual

Analysis: An Analytic Toolkit For Deconstructing The Visual Design Of Graphic Novels.” Journal Of Visual Literacy 31.1 (2012): 71-91. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding comics: the invisible art. New

York: HarperPerennial, 19941993. Print.

Moore, Alan, and Dave Gibbons. Watchmen. Book club ed. New

York: DC Comics Inc., 19871986. Print.

Pratt, Henry John. “Narrative In Comics.” Journal Of

Aesthetics & Art Criticism 67.1 (2009): 107-117. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 Nov. 2013.

Reynolds, James. “‘KILL ME SENTIMENT’: V For Vendetta And

Comic-To-Film Adaptation.” Journal Of Adaptation In Film & Performance 2.2 (2009): 121-136. Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text. Web. 1 Nov. 2013.

Smith, Craig. “Motion Comics: Modes Of Adaptation And The

Issue Of Authenticity.” Animation Practice, Process & Production 1.2 (2012): 357-378. Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text. Web. 3 Nov. 2013.

Watchmen. Dir. Zack Snyder. Perf. Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick

Wilson, Carla Gugino. Warner Home Video, 2009. Blu-Ray.