Before superheroes like Iron Man and Batman conquered box offices, comic books were a dying medium, victims of their own industry’s arrogance and hubris — ironically, the same failings which time and again have foiled the diabolical schemes of villains like Lex Luthor and Doctor Doom.
Comics had been a major part of pop culture for much of the post-war era, but following the success of the 1960s Batman TV series, shows like Wonder Woman, Incredible Hulk, the barely animated Spiderman and 13 seasons of Super Friends kept comic culture firmly in the kid camp.
During the late ’80s, comics matured with cred-boosting, myth-busting deconstructionist graphic novels like Alan Moore’s The Watchmen and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, while Tim Burton sent Batman into the mainstream. Even the then-new X-Men and Batman animated series boasted surprisingly dark storylines. This confluence created an unprecedented boom — conventions across the continent saw artists and writers signing books like they were rock stars.
Publishers took advantage by printing limited runs and multiple covers to inflate collectible prices while abandoning convenience stores (where kids buy candy) in favour of intimidating comic specialty shops (where aging geeks kibitz). The result was “boom go bust” and while the adult comic readers kept buying, there was no influx of fresh blood for the first time since Superman debuted in the late 1930s.

Eventually, enough late-’80s comic fans became cultural doorkeepers, ushering in our current era of superhero celluloid. But what the mainstream movie-watcher is missing is continuity — comics are rooted in decades of compounded storylines, evolving relationships and ever-deepening character development.

Enter Ink: Alter Egos Exposed, a 10-part doc series that smartly explains the social history that shaped comics by assembling some of the artform’s most storied writers and artists, including Marvel masterminds Stan Lee and Jack Kirby; Scottish revisionist Grant Morrison (Arkham Asylum, New X-Men, The Invisibles); American feminist Gail Simone (Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey); indie hero Jaime Hernandez (Love and Rockets); and Canadian-raised legend John Byrne (most major Marvel and DC titles, including Canadian superheroes Alpha Flight).  
Slyly hosted by professed comic-geek (and actor/rocker) Hugh Dillon (Hard Core Logo, Durham County) each episode tackles a different topic, including death and resurrection, gender and relationships, politics, social relevance, censorship and the evolution of heroism. Plus, they examine non-superhero genres and alt-comics. It’s a lot of talking heads, to be sure, but the camera spends most of its time panning the wonderfully stylized artwork. For comic-movie fans, Ink is an invaluable primer. For comic fans, it’s simply invaluable.

INK: ALTER EGOS EXPOSED AIRS FRIDAYS, 8PM ON IFC
Four-Colour Television

Television has long used comics as source material (just as shows have provided fodder for comic spinoffs). But TV-based comics were never canonical, and certainly never critically acclaimed, until fanboy hero Joss Whedon used a four-colour press to “air” Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s eighth season.

A sales smash since launching last spring, Season 8 picks up a year after the series finale with hundreds of girls suddenly imbued with “slayer” powers. In the comic continuation, the US government views these young women as al-Qaeda-type terrorists. Whedon wrote the opening storyline with other arcs handled by former Buffy scribes like Drew Goddard (Lost) and Jane Espenson (Battlestar Galactica).

Whedon is also “exec-producing” Angel: After the Fall, a de facto season six for the prematurely staked series, plus writing a three issue Serenity miniseries based on his cult space western.
Other shows like Heroes, Supernatural, 24 and Battlestar have been similarly using comics and graphic novels to fill in story gaps between episodes and seasons. This month, NBC’s Chuck debuts a six-issue miniseries that the writer says “[is] what would happen if Chuck was a $300 million Hollywood blockbuster.”

See, the appeal of TV-to-comic adaptations is that by dispensing with FX budgets, the only limit to the storytelling is imagination.