10 Obscure Comic Book Titles That Deserve To Be Movies
6. Girl Genius - Phil and Kaja Foglio
Although described by Kaja Foglio as "gaslamp fantasy," most people who look at the imagery will confuse this with various elements of "steampunk"; a subgenre style that seems to be growing and growing in popularity. However the technology, whether mechanically or biologically-based, verges well into magical levels. The story follows Agatha Heterodyne, the last heir of the Heterodyne lineage, as she struggles as a student at Transylvania Polygnostic University. The story evolves as she finds out the truth about her lineage and begins to reclaim her inheritance. The story has much to lend itself to both humour and deep characterisation as well as action and the beauty that would go with CGI in this artistic style. The webcomic won Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards in 2008, and over the next several years straight it won the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story. If movie-makers started with better-quality stories, the opportunity to make a better-quality movie should be more easily in their grasp. Kristen Bell could probably pull off Agatha's role, but for her two paramours, Tarvek and Gilgamesh (The Foglios really picked great names for these guys, didn't they?), Daniel Radcliffe and Jack Gleeson seem like reasonably good choices.
Michael Marcus is a game designer, author, and mad scientist living in Hamtramck, Michigan; his current project list include a series of comic short-stories collectively called "One-Punch," a book on hypnosis and language called "The Prometheus Codex," a collaborative game project called "Art War," and a fun spy story called "The Adventures of Jack Uzi" at http://tinyurl.com/JackUziChannel (for those interested).
