Max
Allen Collins is an award-winning writer of mystery, crime and detective
stories. Newspaper readers knew him for 15 years as the writer for the Dick
Tracy comic strip, making him the voice of one of the greatest creations
in popular fiction. He made his own detective character, Nate Heller, and
followed that with the Road to Perdition, a graphic novel that was turned
into a movie. So why was Collins at AnimeIowa, which celebrates animated
cartoons and other aspects of Japanese culture? The first hint can be found
in the Cowboy Bebop shirt he wore on the convention's opening day. Collins
didn't have to be prompted to wear the shirt; he honestly likes Bebop, describing
that series as being "Lupin (III) done the way it should have been done."
Another hint; Collins is a regular columnist with Asian
Cult Cinema, and enjoys the Asian style of cinematic storytelling. "It strikes me that the Asian sensibility
of storytelling is less self-conscious about what we call `genre,'" Collins
said. "We're always embarrassed about genre, but there's no embarrassment
(in Asia). Rarely do you find anything in a patronizing way - they don't
have any baggage about that."
Collins' main manga link is his role as the rewriter of the Kia Asamiya version of Batman for DC Comics. Visitors to this site will recall that Asamiya spoke about the Batman project
at AnimeNEXT in 2002, and had hoped that English-speaking fans would be able
to enjoy his work. That's where Collins was called in. "I was given a rough
translation and given free reign to write what I wanted to," said Collins.
"It's a loose adaptation, but I've had a pretty good response to it." The
DC release of the Batman manga follows the industry trend toward graphic
novels, but it doesn't follow the trend toward releasing manga in a format
close to the way it would be released in Japan. The book reads from
left to right rather than the unflipped Japanese right to left, and many
of the sound effects were removed. Collins said "There was some soul searching
at DC. They knew the purists would be offended, but they though they could
expose readers to a version of a manga. It's kind of an historic thing - it's the first time a Japanese and American creator have collaborated on a manga."
Regardless
of what Collins has achieved - and there's a lot he's done in his career
- he was best known as the writer for the Dick Tracy strips until Road to Perdition
came around. Ironically, there's a little-known link between the daily comics
and the graphic novel; Collins said the lead characters in Perdition, Michael O'Sullivan and his son, are the "criminal version" of Dick Tracy and his son. Collins spent fifteen years writing the Tracy
stories, deliberately moving that series away from its sci-fi moon-travel
excesses and steering it to a updated version of Chester Gould's style of
crimefighting tales. When DC Comics wanted a graphic novel crime take, they
asked Collins for something like his Nate Heller detective novels,
but not too much like those stories. So, Collins chose to write a story about
a crime family that was the dark, flip side of his tales about the Dick Tracy
crime-fighting family. Perdition was the result.
Max
Allen Collins is an award-winning writer of mystery, crime and detective
stories. Newspaper readers knew him for 15 years as the writer for the Dick
Tracy comic strip, making him the voice of one of the greatest creations
in popular fiction. He made his own detective character, Nate Heller, and
followed that with the Road to Perdition, a graphic novel that was turned
into a movie. So why was Collins at AnimeIowa, which celebrates animated
cartoons and other aspects of Japanese culture? The first hint can be found
in the Cowboy Bebop shirt he wore on the convention's opening day. Collins
didn't have to be prompted to wear the shirt; he honestly likes Bebop, describing
that series as being "Lupin (III) done the way it should have been done."
Another hint; Collins is a regular columnist with Asian
Cult Cinema, and enjoys the Asian style of cinematic storytelling. "It strikes me that the Asian sensibility
of storytelling is less self-conscious about what we call `genre,'" Collins
said. "We're always embarrassed about genre, but there's no embarrassment
(in Asia). Rarely do you find anything in a patronizing way - they don't
have any baggage about that."
Collins' main manga link is his role as the rewriter of the Kia Asamiya version of Batman for DC Comics. Visitors to this site will recall that Asamiya spoke about the Batman project
at AnimeNEXT in 2002, and had hoped that English-speaking fans would be able
to enjoy his work. That's where Collins was called in. "I was given a rough
translation and given free reign to write what I wanted to," said Collins.
"It's a loose adaptation, but I've had a pretty good response to it." The
DC release of the Batman manga follows the industry trend toward graphic
novels, but it doesn't follow the trend toward releasing manga in a format
close to the way it would be released in Japan. The book reads from
left to right rather than the unflipped Japanese right to left, and many
of the sound effects were removed. Collins said "There was some soul searching
at DC. They knew the purists would be offended, but they though they could
expose readers to a version of a manga. It's kind of an historic thing - it's the first time a Japanese and American creator have collaborated on a manga."
Regardless
of what Collins has achieved - and there's a lot he's done in his career
- he was best known as the writer for the Dick Tracy strips until Road to Perdition
came around. Ironically, there's a little-known link between the daily comics
and the graphic novel; Collins said the lead characters in Perdition, Michael O'Sullivan and his son, are the "criminal version" of Dick Tracy and his son. Collins spent fifteen years writing the Tracy
stories, deliberately moving that series away from its sci-fi moon-travel
excesses and steering it to a updated version of Chester Gould's style of
crimefighting tales. When DC Comics wanted a graphic novel crime take, they
asked Collins for something like his Nate Heller detective novels,
but not too much like those stories. So, Collins chose to write a story about
a crime family that was the dark, flip side of his tales about the Dick Tracy
crime-fighting family. Perdition was the result.
