Imagine that some of the great writers of the past were alive today and wanted to work in the comic-book industry. Which work-for-hire mainstream titles would you put them on? (And no, you can’t put Robert E. Howard on Conan, for example, cool as that would be; it has to be something they’ve not done before)

Here’s the talent pool to deploy. Say where you’d place them and what their first story arc might be:

Dashiel Hammett (Sam Spade etc)

Howard Phillip Lovecraft (Call of Cthulhhu et al)

Edgar Allen Poe (Murders in the Rue Morgue et al)

Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan, John Carter etc)

Frank Herbert (Dune etc)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes, The Lost World etc)

Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla (the vampire) and lots of other ghost stories)

Robert E. Howard (Conan, Solomon Kane etc.)

Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist et al)

J.R.R. Tolkein (The Lord of the Rings etc)

William Shakespeare (Macbeth, Hamlet etc)

And just to make it interesting, what other writer who was born before 1920 would you pick to write:

New Avengers

Captain America

Superman

Astro City

Star Wars

Buffy

Pet Avengers

I'm going to retype my answers to the bottom, and then I may deal with the top half of the topic once I find more time.



And just to make it interesting, what other writer who was born before 1920 would you pick to write:

New Avengers: H.G. Wells (War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr. Moreau). Obviously, I'm looking to fulfill the promise of the New Avengers as the catch-all for adventure in the Marvel universe. Skrulls invading? Kang conquering? Mutants running amok? Scientists causing strife? Go to the source, I say.

Captain America: Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Planet, Jeckyll & Hyde) I felt like I should name an American author here, but really what I want most out of Cap stories are high adventure, and Stevenson brings that in spades. (Actually, my second choice was probably Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers), so forget the American thing all together.)

Superman: I can't think of a great Superman choice right now. For "Batman", however, I'd go with Mary Shelley (Frankenstein). A dark genius driven by a personal loss to defeat an abstract enemy that preys on humanity (crime/death)? I think she can get into that head... as well as the understanding the obsessive relationship between Batman and the Joker.

Astro City: Jules Verne (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in 80 Days). Average citizens finding themselves swept up in the adventures of godlike characters and madmen? Society leaping forward with new advances while struggling to understand them and the impact they may have? Verne's the man. (Also my top choice for "Fantastic Four".)

Star Wars: George Orwell (1984, Animal Farm). Who could better make the Empire all that George Lucas dreams it could be?

Buffy: Jonathon Swift (Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal) Buffy needs to be written by someone with a satirical eye and a knack for casting traits of everyday social pressures into fantastic creatures and set-ups. Swift has that down pat. Plus, Spike could really make an excellent case for eating babies.

Pet Avengers: Jack London (Call of the Wild) Probably self-explanatory.

> Imagine that some of the great writers of the past were alive today and wanted to work in the comic-book industry. Which work-for-hire mainstream titles would you put them on? (And no, you can’t put Robert E. Howard on Conan, for example, cool as that would be; it has to be something they’ve not done before)

> Here’s the talent pool to deploy. Say where you’d place them and what their first story arc might be:

> Dashiel Hammett (Sam Spade etc)

I'm going to look past Sam Spade and say that his creation of Nick and Nora Charles makes him the right guy to pen the tales of Iron Man, Tony Stark, playboy with tarnished idealism navigating social circles of both high and low society filled with colorfully dangerous characters, aided by a witty Pepper Potts.


> Howard Phillip Lovecraft (Call of Cthulhhu et al)

A homeless man with no memory constantly hears the siren call of the ocean, but does not understand what it means. Invariably, he finds himself standing at the docks in the relentless rain, the cruel and merciless city looming behind him, while the dark waves below beckon him. Something calls to the anger and resentment that builds inside of him with day after day of misery. When he finally gives in and answers the call, the Submariner will be reborn, and the surface world will never be the same. But what is the dark secret of his underwater kingdom?


> Edgar Allen Poe (Murders in the Rue Morgue et al)

Under the pen of Edgar Allen Poe, the adventures of the Incredible Hulk delve into the dangers of self-enforced isolation while attempting to contain equal parts fear and guilt gnawing at the conscience. Keeping a secret locked inside of him while on the run, Bruce Banner is a ticking... ticking... ticking... time bomb

> Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan, John Carter etc)

This might be an interesting fit with Superman... a man of action living among a society that is not of his own kind. His take on Superman gives him a more innocent, straightforward approach to problem solving that is at odds with the complex and treacherous dealings of human society, where people compensate for their own impotence to change the world with red-tape, roadblocks to progress, and a tendency to tear down those who can rise above.


> Frank Herbert (Dune etc)

The X-men have long featured themes of epic family dynasties set against a science-fiction backdrop. Seems like a good fit here... but then I haven't really read Dune or even made it through the movie (awake, at least.)


I may tackle the others later...

I could see this. He's good with the crosstalk.

My own pick would have been Batman. He could easily out-Miller Frank Miller.







Lovecraft's obsession with history and pseudo-history, with strange remote places and stranger clans would suit him well for a series like The Inhumans or the Eternals, or for Vertigo's Sandman. If I'm sticking to his horror roots I'd have to say Hellblazer.







Poe's good at his suspense and horror but he's also got that morbid domestic touch. I'd try him out on our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. At least Peter can mourn his lost love properly then.







Something like the Green Lantern or Nova would easily fit into Burrough's range; both owe debts to some of his work. I also think he could but the smash back into Hulk. Forget the psychological stuff; let's see the Hulk break things for a while.







He's the king of the epic dynastic saga so your X-choice is a good one. I'd try him out of FF too, since at his best he just hurls out concept after concept in a tide of discovery. Also the FF desperately need a good recurring villain that didn't beut in the Lee/Kirby era.




Proceed.

I'd go for someone who can write the characters interacting and "get" the high concept of a band of heroes striving for justice. I'd pick T.H. White of Once and Future King fame, just because I'd love to see one of my favourite writers on my favourite team.




I could really see this one. I was wondering about what Walt Whitman could do with Cap. He'd certainly get the speeches right.




For Superman I'd go with H. Rider Haggard, creator of two-fisted adventurer Alan Quartermain. Haggard could blend the amazing with the everyday so he could get the Clark/Supes divide, and he always made sure there was a spark of romance in the stories.

Batman has such pulp roots it's easy to try and fit one of the classic pulp writers to him, but I think I'd go right back to Chaucer. The range of characters and situations in The Canterbury Tales could fit right there in the streets of Gotham.




I think Astro City's uniqueness comes from its oblique take presenting human stories behind the superhero stuff. Hemingway, perhaps?




"Dark Side Good, Light Side Bad."

Forn this one I'd unship Narnia writer and pre-eminent theologian C.S. Lewis. Star Wars is at its heart a struggle between good and evil played on a galactic scale but also in the hearts of the protagonists. Lewis did all that seventy years ago with That Hideous Strength.




I like that match. I'd go right back to the source, though, and appoint Bram Stoker himself. Dracula is a book about a band of heroes desperately combining to protect the world against supernatural menace, guided by a wise scholar with an extensive library.




How about Joel Chandler Harris, author of the Uncle Remus stories? "We'll catch that 'ol Ducktor Doom alright, Bre'r Lockjaw, jest you see! Why I wus born an' bred in Avengers Mansion!"

...because in my own personal experience, there's a huge rift between writing in freeform text and writing in visual format. It's why most books converted to movie need a screenwriter, someone experienced with a visual style.

The advantages are it's easier to portray background idiosyncrasies, multiple people speaking at once with no real order to it (and leave the reader to figure out the order) and multiple events occurring at the same exact time.

It's much more difficult to convey emotion in a visual format. Text allows you to spend more time on a particular feeling or event, visual formats demand you move on because it has a different sense of timing. But at the same time, comic format has a unique advantage shared with movies - you can use color and lighting to convey those same feelings without any words at all.

That said, I actually believe Frank Herbert would be terrible in a visual format without some training. Or, for the most part, anyone who has a very technical, wordy style might have problems converting to the other style. The same with the classical Charles Dickenns, and probably Tolkien as well.

I believe the shining stars of comic/visual format out of your list would be: Edgar Allen Poe, who used words to paint visuals that I believe he would have physically painted if he had the chance (because of his repeated emphasis of certain themes about it); and not really surprisingly, William Shakespere, who originally wrote most of his works to be acted out on a stage - that format converts nicely to comic format.

There's some technical stuff to master in screenwriting and one has to think visually as well as in dialogue but I'd generally prefer having someone who understands the character to someone who understands the medium. Movies are a more collective process than literary writing so it's far easier to have experts play catch up on the technial stuff than on the central vision.

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The advantages are it's easier to portray background idiosyncrasies, multiple people speaking at once with no real order to it (and leave the reader to figure out the order) and multiple events occurring at the same exact time.

Yes. Although there's a series here in the UK "Spooks" ("MI5" in the US, I understand) that regularly uses split-screen to convey real-time simultaneous action.

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It's much more difficult to convey emotion in a visual format. Text allows you to spend more time on a particular feeling or event, visual formats demand you move on because it has a different sense of timing. But at the same time, comic format has a unique advantage shared with movies - you can use color and lighting to convey those same feelings without any words at all.

I agree again. Comics other great trick is to be able to segue into flashback and expository information using visuals to help without it seeming such a big deal.

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That said, I actually believe Frank Herbert would be terrible in a visual format without some training. Or, for the most part, anyone who has a very technical, wordy style might have problems converting to the other style. The same with the classical Charles Dickenns, and probably Tolkien as well.

Dickens could easily do dialogue. He translates to radio and TV pretty well. Tolkein needed some work but his movies turned out pretty good. Then again, Tolkein could really have used an editor who wasn't terrified of him anyhow.

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I believe the shining stars of comic/visual format out of your list would be: Edgar Allen Poe, who used words to paint visuals that I believe he would have physically painted if he had the chance (because of his repeated emphasis of certain themes about it); and not really surprisingly, William Shakespere, who originally wrote most of his works to be acted out on a stage - that format converts nicely to comic format.

Good points all.

I always, always, always wanted Kurt Vonnegut to write a Superman story, and it never happened. So it goes. It would've read like a Cary Bates story, probably, only stranger.

I could see that, actually.