Which medium is right for the message? #Transmedia Teasing for Comic-Con

via hitfix.com

By Alan Sepinwall WEDNESDAY, JUL 20, 2011 1:05 PM

"Comic-Con starts tomorrow, and before I head out to San Diego, I had a few idle (and unsurprisingly nerdy) thoughts on a subject that feels particularly germane, given the blending of comics, movies, TV, etc. at what was once primarily a convention about comic books:

What happens when characters from one medium cross over into another?

One of my favorite comic book series of the last decade is Greg Rucka's espionage series "Queen & Country," centered on the life of Tara Chace, a tall, cool blond "minder" for the British government, who's one of the best killers in the world.(*) Each arc is drawn by a different artist, automatically giving it a different one even as characters like Tara, boss Paul Crocker and others continue to appear and, in some cases, evolve. It works wonderfully as a thriller, as a character piece and also as a bit of geo-political commentary. Rucka's so plugged into this world that he had a Taliban story in the works months before 9/11 (it had the eerie timing to come out right after), and a later story opened with a terror attack on the London Underground that was eerily similar to the actual attack that happened nearly a year later in the real world.

(*) And to pre-empt the two inevitable questions: Yes, I am aware that Rucka based the series in part on the '70s British TV series "The Sandbaggers," and no, I have never actually seen an episode of "The Sandbaggers."

I bring this up because it's a great series that more people should be reading, but also because in addition to the "Queen & Country" comic book, Rucka has also written three different prose novels in the series: "A Gentlemen's Game" (that's the one with the London terror attack), "Private Wars" and "The Last Run." Rucka got his start as a crime novelist (his Atticus Kodiak series is still ongoing, though it's evolved pretty dramatically over the years) and so he's an old hand at the format. And the "Queen & Country" novels are interesting for two reasons:

1)To see how differently the same writer, working with the same characters and universe, can tell a story so differently depending on the medium;

and

2)Because Rucka didn't treat the books as inessential, or non-canon, or however the various "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" tie-in books are usually treated. These books are not only part of the ongoing story of Tara Chace, but major events in her life and the ongoing life of the series take place within those pages...."

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales