ACCIDENT MAN - Film Review

[Bad City Blue]

Blimey... that was fun

http://cool-stuff-you-will-like.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/accident-man-film-review.html

[Jim_Campbell]

Thanks for the review! One tiny correction, there — pretty sure Accident Man was created by Mills and artist Martin Emond...

[sheridan]

Wonder if it'll make it to any (rep) cinemas?

[Bad City Blue]

Thanks for the review! One tiny correction, there — pretty sure Accident Man was created by Mills and artist Martin Emond...

Not quite. It WAS Pat Mills and Tony Skinner, but Skinner was co writer not an artist, so amended

[Jim_Campbell]

Not quite. It WAS Pat Mills and Tony Skinner, but Skinner was co writer not an artist, so amended

And Martin Emond. Unless artists aren't counted as creators now...?

[Bad City Blue]

Not quite. It WAS Pat Mills and Tony Skinner, but Skinner was co writer not an artist, so amended

And Martin Emond. Unless artists aren't counted as creators now...?

Official copyrighted creators so I'll stick with it

[Leigh S]

I'm with Jim on including the original artist as a co-creator - I would imagine Pat would see it that way too?

Either way, that's got me excited for the film - can you quell my concerns regarding the "cocker-neyness" of it ll though -even if Fallon talks a bit Pearly King, I hope the yuppy selfish psycho bastard persona is intact?

[Bad City Blue]

I'm with Jim on including the original artist as a co-creator - I would imagine Pat would see it that way too?

Either way, that's got me excited for the film - can you quell my concerns regarding the "cocker-neyness" of it ll though -even if Fallon talks a bit Pearly King, I hope the yuppy selfish psycho bastard persona is intact?

There's speech and voiceover lifted from the first book, he is uncaring apart from the ex girlfriend who ran off with a lesbian. He's not a yuppy type (that was SO 90s), just a bloke who does his job to get money to buy motorbikes.

As for the creator issue, I've gone with the credits at the start of the 'complete' book. 

[Jim_Campbell]

I'm with Jim on including the original artist as a co-creator - I would imagine Pat would see it that way too?

I think he's made it pretty clear over the years that he doesn't.

[JamesC]

How accepted is it across the industry that an artist is considered as co-creator of a character? Does a description from the writer have much bearing? For example, Judge Dredd is clearly a design that's been worked on with lots of creative energy from the artist (i don't think anyone could question Carlos' position of co-creator) but if a character such as Max Normal is described in the script as 'looks like a spiv, dark pin-stripe suit, bowler hat, umbrella, flower in lapel, medium build, white with dark hair and a pencil mustache' would most artists expect to get a co-creator credit for rendering that?

I was just wondering how specific Pat's description of the Accident Man character was and whether this has a bearing on his position.

[pauljholden]

if a character such as Max Normal is described in the script as 'looks like a spiv, dark pin-stripe suit, bowler hat, umbrella, flower in lapel, medium build, white with dark hair and a pencil mustache' would most artists expect to get a co-creator credit for rendering that?

Yes.

For a couple of reasons:

1) until the drawing is done there is no fixed visual image and, without using the name max normal you could give that description to 100 artists and get 100 variations (there will, doubtless be a core around which you'd assume it was the same character, but yes)

2) Regardless of copyright, trademarks or other legal stuff, at the very least a review can do is to dig in a little and make a considered decision as to whether an artist materially contributed enough to the look of a comic to make that person be considered-by general consensus if not law-as a co-creator.

-pj

[JamesC]

Thanks for clarifying. I thought that was probably the case but wondered if there was some sort of rough guideline for what constituted 'creation'.

The more i think about this, the more questions I have but I don't want to derail the thread any more.

[GordonR]

Yes, the comic character Accident Man seems to have been entirely created by two comic writers without the involvement of a comic artist.  How curious.

I can just imagine what my late friend Martin Emond - who apparently didn't co-create Accident Man after all, when he designed and drew the character for its first appearance in Toxic - would say about this.  And how entirejr unsurprised he'd be.

[JamesC]

Yes, the comic character Accident Man seems to have been entirely created by two comic writers without the involvement of a comic artist.  How curious.

I can just imagine what my late friend Martin Emond - who apparently didn't co-create Accident Man after all, when he designed and drew the character for its first appearance in Toxic - would say about this.  And how entirejr unsurprised he'd be.

Apologies for further de-railment but just to clarify why I was questioning this. I thought there may be some grey-areas. For example, Abelard Snazz is based on an optical illusion which Alan Moore passed on to Steve Dillon. I thought it may be fair to say that Dillon may not expect a co-creator credit in this instance but I may be wrong. Grant Morrisson often draws character designs for his artists to work from so likewise, I thought the strip artist may not expect a credit as co-creator depending upon how closely he stuck to Morrisson's designs. Again, I may be wrong to question this. I thought a detailed text description may serve a similar purpose (PJ's clarified that).
I find this a pretty interesting area though, particularly when there are various versions of the same character (eg. Marvel Conan, Dark Horse Conan).
 

[pauljholden]

Yes, the comic character Accident Man seems to have been entirely created by two comic writers without the involvement of a comic artist.  How curious.

I can just imagine what my late friend Martin Emond - who apparently didn't co-create Accident Man after all, when he designed and drew the character for its first appearance in Toxic - would say about this.  And how entirejr unsurprised he'd be.

Apologies for further de-railment but just to clarify why I was questioning this. I thought there may be some grey-areas. For example, Abelard Snazz is based on an optical illusion which Alan Moore passed on to Steve Dillon. I thought it may be fair to say that Dillon may not expect a co-creator credit in this instance but I may be wrong. Grant Morrisson often draws character designs for his artists to work from so likewise, I thought the strip artist may not expect a credit as co-creator depending upon how closely he stuck to Morrisson's designs. Again, I may be wrong to question this. I thought a detailed text description may serve a similar purpose (PJ's clarified that).
I find this a pretty interesting area though, particularly when there are various versions of the same character (eg. Marvel Conan, Dark Horse Conan).

Imagine Abelnaard Snazz drawn by Steve Dillon, now imagine it drawn by Brendan McCarthy. (Wait! You don't have to even do that, look at McCarthy's original vision design of Zenith and look at how Steve Yeowell handled it - McCarthy drawing Zenith's world would look entirely different).

EVERY artist contributes something to the visual development (whether that's intentional or not, they do).

Comics requires it. Every single thing described by the writer is filtered through by the first artist to draw (and on a good team, this often feeds back to the writer - the writer sees the artist is better at this or that, then plays to those strengths "MY artist is rubbish at crowds, but good at close ups, so I'll focus on X part of the story more")


Now, crediting the artist is another thing - and often comes down to "who gets a paycheque when this appears" - it's a vastly simplified reduction of the genesis of the work involved. In a review though, I think the decent and correct thing to do is to credit people that contribute in every way to the work under review (I accept this is a wider point, but still)


-pj