Apparently Hollywood still thinks of comic books as being primarily a kid-oriented artform. The normally excellent Cynopsis (with annoying autoplaying video and audio) always lumps it’s comic book stories right into their Kids daily newsletter, no matter what the actual content of the title(s) being discussed. This morning, they’ve decided that the closing of Virgin Comics’ NY offices was prime Cynopsis Kids material, giving it their main story position.
Virgin Comics, the two year-old joint venture between the Virgin Group and India’s comic book publisher Gotham Entertainment, has closed its US offices in NY, at the very least, according to Publishers Weekly. The report cites a statement by Virgin Comics CEO and Gotham Entertainment Prexy Sharad Devarajan confirming the shuttering of the NY office and explaining that the company is restructuring and plans to relocate to LA, with more information coming in the next weeks. Financed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, Author/speaker Deepak Chopra is Chairman/Virgin Comics and his son Gotham Chopra is CCO and Editor-in-Chief of Virgin Comics and Virgin Animation respectively.
Offensive? Naw. Just not terribly accurate considering pretty much the entire Virgin Comics line consisted of adult-oriented titles, including massively violent stories and art, not to mention a Jenna freakin’ Jameson series. No, not offensive, but it really foes show that despite having the two biggest movies of the summer (with huge adult appeal, mind you) based off of comics, the remainder of the comic book movies grossing about $100M apiece (Hellboy II excepted), and the upcoming “Watchmen” movie being the buzz flick of ‘08-’09, Hollywood’s gonna continue to not really pay attention to the actual source material.
Along these same lines (sort of), is it just me or does it feel a bit creepy and weird to see toy commercials tied into the Dark Knight movie? This includes spots for toys included in kids’ cereal. I’m not a parent but I don’t think I would’ve taken any kid under 16 to see the new Batman.
I’m not surprised that they would try to tie in a toy line but it must’ve been a serious marketing challenge considering there’s not much kid-oriented material in the flick.