Sookie, Bill, Sam, and Tara cannot be contained in a handful of rarely produced television episodes!
At WonderCon, IDW have announced their partnership with HBO to produce a True Blood comic book series. The first six issue series was plotted with series creator Alan Ball, along with series wriers Elisabeth Finch and Kate Barnow, and co-written with David Tischman and Mariah Huehner, with art by David Messina, featuring covers by Messina and J. Scott Campbell.
The book will feature all the characters from the TV show, and if done well enough, we can continue the debate about who is the sexiest character in True Blood, but in comic book form. Honestly, I can't choose between Eric and Tara, but to each their own.
Take a gander at Alan Ball talking about the new comics:
The series will premiere in July at the San Diego Comic-Con.
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So long as it’s quality it can work, and IDW does a lot of quality these days.
That said, it also does Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Music Box….
This is a total no brainer. Good on IDW for snapping this one up.
I would’ve thought Charlaine Harris would be tapped to write her own characters, like Laurell Hamilton’s been doing at Marvel.
@jfernandes aside from Bill and Sookie, the "True Blood" characters hardly resemble Harris’s original set, and I’m not sure her original set is worth comic-ing.
i’m curious to see how these "different stories" tie into the show.
True Blood is a very rare case where the T.V. adaptation is so much better than the source material. I read a few of the Sookie Stackhouse books and they were painfully bad. We should all be thankful that Alan Ball and the writers on the show are heading up this new project.
Great news. I loved the first season of the show.
Glad these are being based on the HBO show, ’cause I got *zero* interest in the novels.
I am also glad to these being based on the show not the books. The books I tried to read were pretty painful, just saccharine sweet and corny and just flat-out poorly written IMO. but the show is pure genius. I may snag the first mini and try to get my wife into it, she loves her some true blood.
This explains that carbonated fruit punch I had at the IDW booth.
Hard to picture how this is going to look without some artist’s names thrown at me.
alan ball, the most overrated writer alive today
very strange beard too
and he’s got the crazy eyes
True Blood…it ain’t Twilight!
It is baffling how thee same people hate on Twilight and love True Blood! I mean its just Twilight with boobs!
@sK0pe – David Messina is the artist.
I think it’s more like Twilight with actual characterization and plot.
I saw a few minutes of Twilight on the TV, and they might both be about vampires, but that’s about the end of it.
@josh: a teen/early 20s girl falls for a hundred year old moody vampire – it’s the same shit.
and i do mean shit
@Edward – Except that True Blood has a fantastic racist/homo-phobic allegory going on.
I would read a ‘Twilight’ comic!
What?
@noto:
Wait what? Characterization and Plot? I’ll accept I only saw the first 3 episodes, but they were filled with atrocious writing, with contrived sex scenes, derived from situations more at home in a porno, the dialogue was mostly expository and frivolous and characters were one-dimensional, uninteresting and everybody who portrayed a vampire on that show chewed scenery like nobody’s business. I recently, like Josh tried to watch Twilight, 15 minutes in I stopped watching for almost all these reasons.
@Muddi is right. The writing on "True Blood" is atrocious. Contrived sex scenes that lead nowhere, nothing to do with Vampires, tries to shock. "A sex tape with a vampire, then another sex tape with a vampire, then a girl is dead hanging naked in her room, but then she starts laughing cause she ‘Played a joke, she’s not really dead, Just Kidding!’" Wow that is awful writing.
I didn’t like True Blood at first, but it grew on me. It’s sort of campy, which I usually don’t like, but it knows it about itself, and plays up the goofiness.
That’s why I like it. But then, I’m being told that’s not true categorically, so who can say?
I really dig the True Blood TV show…don’t know if I really need to read a True Blood comic book though…I’ll wait until more is revealed on the book.
nah, true blood isn’t good. mindless, silly set ups to see tits, ass and abs wrapped in this fairy floss easy vampire story. no substance.
i can also tell you the exact point in six feet under when alan ball’s writing was relieved to be just stupid instead of quicky and profound
This is the part where I’m supposed to ask if you’ve seen every episode before acting like you know what you’re talking about.
I enjoyed True Blood and feel that it is the funnest and consistently engaging series HBO has had in a few. I’m just enjoying the ride. Acknowledgingly tongue and cheek. I do recognise that all the HBO series I enjoyed usually hit a wall, where it becomes unwatchable.. (cept the WIRE)… but True Blood has yet to get there.
and it just oozes so much sex appeal (aside from all the actual sex)
@jimski: just relax, i’m just talking here. how was your day? how have you been? really?
i’ve seen about half of the first season. do i really need to watch more than that to form an opinion? ok, i guess i should read every dc comic ever written before discussing blackest night too
No question, the red-head vampire(Jessica?) is the sexiest character.
…wait. There’s a different debate going on here.
@josh
I have no problem with people liking it, but a lot of the same people give twilight fans, especially on the internet, a lot of grief, which confuses me!
@muddi The problem that I have with Twilight (the novel) is that nothing happens in it at all. Literally, nothing. The first three-four chapters were all set descriptions and the characterization of Bella falls flat because nothing is remotely interesting about her. Milquetoast to a tee. New Moon (the novel) I could only get three chapters into before giving up. The movies, both of which I’ve seen, are only slightly an improvement.
I’ve never read the True Blood book series, but I’ve been huge on vampires and will give anything with vampires a glance or two. It started out rather rocky, but it’s very self-aware, has allegories both obvious and not-so, an eclectic group of characters with different abilities, a unique setting and backdrop. The way the characters tie together is interesting, if not always on point and new ideas are thrown out every episode. It’s not great television, but as a supernatural soap-opera it at least has clearly defined laws to work within and a fun political climate to work against. It isn’t just about Sookie, which is the antithesis of Twilight, which is all about Bella’s one-sided view. The love triangles, the motivations, and the interations between characters in True Blood move an over-arcing story around. It’s not just one schoolgirl’s hidden fantasy.
There’s nothing at all wrong with liking Twilight for what it is, but any similarities between Twilight and True Blood are superficial at best (female lead, loves a vampire, there are werewolves, etc.) once both series pick up, the departure is very significant. A better comparison for Twilight would be The Vampire Diaries. I feel there is room for a lot more story potential in the True Blood universe than there is in Twilight.
Comparing True Blood to Twilight is like comparing apples to oranges…yeah both are about vampires and thus have similarities that Noto has mentioned, but also has vast differences that Noto has also mentioned, and to ignore these is pretty ignorant.
The main beef that I have with Twilight is that the author shows a well documented ignorance towards vampires and one of the biggest things they are an allegory for: lust. In fact, the main story of Twilight is an allegory for abstinence, which is pretty stupid since the creatures stand for the exact opposite. The worst thing about it is that the story is 100% devoid of fun and takes itself so seriously that it is ridiculous.
True Blood, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. It doesn’t take itself seriously, has humor about it’s ridiculous situations, and most importantly, GETS THE CREATURES RIGHT! So since IDW usually hits the nail on the head with its licenced properties, I think I’ll give this a shot.
This is perfect on every level for IDW. Showing that they deserve to get the new ‘namesake’ from Diamond.
I’m not a fan of True Blood. (Like edward, I wish this vampire shit would go away)….However in terms of marketing and sales how could this not work out well for the company? A good amount of fans will hopefully pick this up. Even the fans of the books will pick this up too. Win win, baby.
@chris:
You know the best depiction of vampires in recent times is on Supernatural. They walk around in the sun and do not turn to dust when killed. And the only way to kill them is decapitation. It is vastly different than traditional depiction of the monster, but you know what? Its a fictional creature, there is no scientific text detailing its characteristics. I don’t want to attack you, but the argument is as lame as "Zombies can’t be fast! 28 Days Later sucks!".
@Noto
Except Buffy did all that 10 years ago with twice the writing quality and done half as gratuitously.
@muddi – I’m not saying Buffy is a better show. I’m saying that True Blood and Twilight are different beasts.
Plus, what the hell is wrong with gratuitous sex and violence? Particularly in vampire fiction, it’s been used — well, almost since vampire fiction started.
@muddi900: I enjoy TRUE BLOOD way more than I ever did BUFFY.
@noto:
Buffy is a better show.o_O
Lets agree to disagree man.
@conor:
Nothing wrong with that.
@muddi900
You’re missing the point…my argument wasn’t what they can do on the core, but what they represent. At it’s core, the vampires of Supernatural are a little different (but vastly like you’re implying), but they still represent the bloody lust that vampires have always represented, from Bram Stroker’s novel to the Hammer movies to Buffy to Ann Rice’s novels to Near Dark to John Carpenter’s Vampires to True Blood. While tweaks such as the ones as the vampires on Supernatural (and that’s all they are, tweaks…they’re basically the same creature), there must be some common ground. Twilight perpetuates the exact opposite of what vampires MEAN, not what they do on the surface. True Blood is true.
Since you brought up zombies, I’ll give you a zombie example of changing the core image yet remaining true to the underlying meaning. Joe Dante made an incredible Masters of Horror episode called Homecoming, which centered around reanimated corpses of those killed in the recent war. They are zombies in every sense of the word, but don’t want to eat brains, are fairly intelligent, and can even speak to a limited degree. Their modus operandi is that these soldiers raise from the dead because they want to vote Bush out of office for sending them to war, and thus they mob the voting booths. See, even though these zombies have many stark differences to any zombie that has been depicted, their underlying meaning remains the same: mob mentality. That is why 28 Days Later and the remake of DOTD work just as well as the old Romero movies, because the essence is still there. They are still true zombies.
^but NOT vastly, like you’re implying
as a fan of most things vampire, i did not know what to make of HBO’s True Blood. Once I decided that everyone (save maybe vampire bill) was in on the joke, i relaxed. Once the show got over the "we’re not on network tv so we have to have lots of sexing and cursing and gore to make it worth the trouble" phase, it was much more enjoyable. for me, this took about 3-4 episodes. now i love the show to bitty bits.
the books are their own thing, certainly. i don’t think they’re bad. i think they’re simply written and more about being mysteries that happen to be set in the south in a world that is aware of vampires and other fantastical creatures (at least in the beginning). they are not my cuppa, but i like them enough to keep reading. they just live in a separate place in my mind than True Blood.
Wait for reviews, I’m not that hard up for nudity or violence. Though I do like the characters. We’ll see
@muddi Buffy is the better show, but it’s irrelevent to the conversation. You wanted to know what the differences between Twilight and True Blood are. Buffy has nothing to do with that.