6 Reasons Breaking Bad Could Only Have Worked As A TV Show

Heisenberg's crimes as filtered through a child-friendly format have been covered to a degree in the 'Animated Series' entry. So we'll train our attention here on Gilligan's opus being rendered on the long-standing platform of the graphic novel, with its target market tall enough to actually reach the counter.

This may improve upon a wordy book in that you can see the character's faces, getting the portrayal of Walt a lot closer to how we know him now. The sticking point is action. There's plenty of sitting around in Breaking Bad. A strain on any artist's wrists. So as with an animation or video game the quickfire blood and carnage would be heavily promoted.

Key moments from the show would look great in a painted panel. Jesse floating into the air while high or Gus's half-faced demise in particular. Yet while an amount of subtlety could be shown, it'd just lack the depth of the end result that made an impression on viewers around the world. A single interaction between Cranston and Aaron Paul has more punch than a thousand pages sitting on a comic store shelf.