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"I'm Spartacus… But I Am Not A Graphic Novel!"

Published Sun, 24 Jan 2010 07:00:22 -0600

Last updated Sun, 24 Jan 2010 10:33:59 -0600

First it was Sherlock Holmes, described by producers and press releases alike as based on a graphic novel – that never actually existed.

Now it's turn of the new TV show Spartacus: Blood And Sand that aired on Friday on ~~Spazz~~ Starz in the USA. They didn't have the courtesy to even put up some drawn pretty pictures in an attempt to justify it.

this unique mix of live action, graphic novel effects and brutal battle sequences is set to make "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" an epic television event.

But in this case, I couldn't tear myself away from the "unique mix of live action, graphic novel effects and brutal battle sequences," as STARZ describes it.

"We always wanted to tell this story in a very graphic novel way," says DeKnight

And it's not just lazy PR hacks who think they can hijack the medium of "graphic novel" and reduce it down to "something that looks a bit like Zack Synder directed it, but on a budget". The actors are at it too. Lucy Lawless is calling quoted as saying;

Because we're asking people to buy into this great conceit that there is a hyperrealistic, graphic-novel world where there are swirls of blood kind of being thrown across the inside of your TV screens every week. They have to already come to terms with nakedness.

For graphic-novel world, read, it looks a bit like 300.

Although it is dun to see how "comic book" in hack slang means something simplistic and childish while "graphic novel" means something simplistic and filled with slowed down violence and a bit of shagging, don't you think?

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