Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, DC Comics, Netflix, streaming, TV | Tagged: bodies, dc comics, netflix

How DC Comics Got In The Way Of Bodies On Netflix

I attended the MCM London Comic Con panel for Bodies. the new Netflix crime/sci-fi drama based on the comic originally published by DC Comics

I mentioned I attended the MCM London Comic Con panel for Bodies, earlier called From Page To Screen. Around the new Netflix crime/sci-fi drama based on the graphic novel by Si Spencer, Dean Ormston, Phil Winslade, Meghan Hetrick, Tula Lotay and Lee Loughridge, which DC Comics published initially. And therein lay the problem.

The panel was made up of Paul Tomalin (lead writer and series creator), Marco Kreuzpaintner (director), Will Gould (exec producer) and Sophie McClancy (producer), and they talked about the collaboration on making the show at length. The show, like the comic, is set in four different time zones, spread over two hundred years. And it seemed like it took that long to sort the rights.

Will Gould, also known for Cuffs, The Deep, The Wolves Of Kromer and most relevantly to this show, Ripper Street, talked about wanting to make this show a long time ago, but that DC Comics, who shared rights with Si Spencer, wouldn't allow it to be made. And that it took a long time for Si Spencer to get the rights back from DC so that he could make the show with Netflix. Sadly, they only got the green light for the show days after his tragic death of a heart attack in 2019. "The DC of it all made it complicated", but Netflix was very helpful in getting those rights sorted. I just bet they were…

DC Comics' intransigence with certain rights has been legendary, often choosing to reprint a comic book for which there may be no imminent demand rather than let any media rights return to the comics' creators after an agreed-upon length of time. But in this case, it denied Si Spencer from even knowing that his comic would be made into a show.

When the production team was finally able to make Bodies, they talked about how the easiest bits to adapt from the comic books were the characters, the lead detectives, and even in the future setting, which needed more changes. That Si Spencer wrote the book "like a fever dream" and that there were bits that even he didn't remember or understand when the production team asked about the adaptation. And the show decided that the book needed an antagonist, which the comic didn't have. Played by Stephan Graham, they cast him after a Zoom meeting when he was filming Matilda and was attracted to playing the four versions of the same character, something he hadn't done before, and he was looking for a challenge.

This enabled them to present Bodies as a detective show with a twist, and it was pitched as a police procedural show before taking it into more bizarre territory. Phil Tomalin talked about taking the "Know you are loved" from the book, embodying and earning the phrase in its move from something toxic to something positive.

And in reflecting the times, they said that most London scenes were shot in Yorkshire, around Grimsby and Hull. Where they could find abandoned streets with shut-down businesses who wouldn't object to closing down a road to film… Bodies really does appear to be a show of our times. Even if it is set in four of them.

Bodies is available for streaming on Netflix now. Bodies by Si Spencer, Dean Ormston, Phil Winslade, Meghan Hetrick, Tula Lotay and Lee Loughridge will be republished by DC Comics on Tuesday. Man, the artist credits on that Amazon listing also need fixing…

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