The Geek Files have scored a fantastic exclusive interview with legendary comic book artist John Romita Jr about his work and thoughts on the comic book industry and comic book movie adaptations, including The Dark Knight – which he didn’t much care for – and The Avengers – which he loved.
Here’s a couple of highlights:
“I think this Avengers film is as good as it gets. The guys that worked on it were comic people. And that’s important, to have that innate feeling about comics, the comedy, the looseness of the dialogue and the strength of the characters, the strength of the images, they’re indeed comic book people.
“We’ve seen movies that haven’t been done successfully because they weren’t done by comic book people per se.
“A lot of young directors, producers and writers have a history of reading comics. You have to. And now especially from here on in since the two are so joined now, film and comics, they are paralleled and are taking from each other. I think comics has always relied on film, artists and writers had to refer to films of their youth. I know I did. I think now it’s both ways, filmmakers have read comics. Screenwriters are in the comic industry or some see their screenplays become graphic novels. This is the way it’s supposed to be and I think it works well, the Avengers movie works well as a typical joining of the two.
“There are scenes in the Avengers that are microcosms of the difference between Marvel and DC. And I think there’s the comedy in the middle of the horror and that’s the Stan Lee approach. You’ve got Spider-Man getting the snot beat out of him and at an important moment cracks a wise comment. I think that’s the difference. It was so serious in Dark Knight and that’s the difference.”
Head on over to The Geek Files for the rest, including information on how his work on the Kick-Ass 2 and spin-off hit Girl comics ties in with the upcoming movie adaptation/sequel. It’s well worth a read!