How do you adapt the titan (some would say diva) that is a Quentin Tarantino script? Well, turns out it might be impossible to do it completely right, but getting R.M. Guera and Jason Latour to draw it is a pretty good place to start.
Based on a script by Quentin Tarantino
Illustrated by R.M. Guera & Jason Latour– Oscar-winning writer/director Quentin Tarantino’s latest epic film script is adapted for comics!
– The blood-soaked tale of a bounty-hunting dentist and his partner, a recently freed slave, in the post-Civil War South!
– This is an adaptation of the full screenplay, including scenes that may not make it into the final theatrical cut!
The story of the issue is literally the first fifth of the film, so a lot of it is set-up to introduce the characters of the newly-freed Django, his new bounty-hunter partner Schultz, and the world that they inhabit. Schultz spirits Django away from his masters, partially because he’s one of the only men who can identify a potential bounty for Schultz and for a little bit of revenge factor. Schultz is presented as an honorable, but brutally unforgiving man who despises the slave trade and takes pleasure in fighting back against those who abuse it. Once the two of them are on their way, the story opens up to let the characters bounce off of one another. This includes backstory on Django and a fantastic scene where Django is allowed to “create a character” for a bounty scenario that he and Schultz will be playing out in a village down the road.
As a fair warning, Tarantino throws a certain awful racial slur around a lot in this script. A lot. And to their credit, the Vertigo editors did not have it censored. To be fair, it is either used by a character that we are supposed to find unsavory or being used by Schultz (who despises slavery) in acts of subterfuge. Either way, Tarantino does not glorify the word and we are meant to find it to be unseemly. Just be aware that it’s present in multitudes in “Django Unchained.”
If you’re not familiar with Tarantino’s films, allow me to sum them up: create visual pastiches of different genre films (some obscure, some not) and mix them together with elaborate and clever dialogue spoken by terrific actors. There, now you’re up to speed. But if the defining qualities of a Tarantino movie are almost entirely steeping in the process of actually filming a movie, then what is gained by making a comic book out of it? The problems with this book lie more in that question than they do with any specific problems with the book itself.
From beginning to end, this is a good story being told well. There’s just no getting around the fact that Tarantino makes films. His dialogue, as assured as it is, needs to be heard rather than read. Christoph Waltz can turn Q.T.’s script into music, while reading that dialogue on the page makes it seem dry and lengthier than it is. In the opening scenes, Schultz dispenses with so much elaborately woven speechifying that the dialogue can take up about as much panel space as the art, at times. It is clearly in Schultz’s character to be formal, wordy, and charming, but it doesn’t allow the visuals to share the page well enough. In the end, it’s a clever but overly wordy and surprisingly dry read that goes down a lot more smoothly when it’s poured into your ear. Likewise, it results in a lot of “talking head” syndrome, especially in the beginning of the story. The aim of this comic was to adapt the screenplay as written, so there was no way around this. At the end of the day, it’s just an inherent weakness that nothing can be done about.
R.M. Guera’s art, however, is not an issue. It’s terrific. And if Tarantino’s past efforts in film are any indication, Guera probably dials back the violence and brutality a good bit. He isn’t overzealous with the bloodshed and even makes some very artistic choices to obscure some of the gruesome in the shadows. It’s a smart choice to dial down the bloodshed, seeing as Tarantino is making a very specific reference to cult western & kung fu films when he chooses to use exploding packets of blood. It wouldn’t have the intended effect, on the illustrated page. And while I’m sure the editors deserve their share of credit with how the story ended up on on the pages, Guera must be applauded for the pacing of the storytelling. In the sketchbook section at the back of the issue it is said that Guera was not to use the likenesses of the actors and actresses in his adaptation. A terrific choice, seeing as using famous faces historically distracts when reading a comic book. It’s tough to get it just right, when you want the likeness to be taken seriously or to be seen as a “character” and not the actor. His Schultz looks sort of like Waltz, but doesn’t attempt to copy his likeness. Django really looks nothing much like Jamie Foxx. The characters look like R.M. Guera characters and they end up looking really very good. It should be noted that Jason Latour does the panels that take place as flashbacks and these are a nice compliment to Guera’s work. The characters look the same, but cartoonish versions of themselves. Django is drawing upon horrible memories and as a result the visions seem just a touch looser and wilder.
As merely sequential art, this is a visually wonderful look at a very specific time in history. Everything looks authentic and the story is well-paced and attractively rendered. This script was never meant to be a comic book though, and would have benefitted from some trimming. Then again, if it’s trimmed, it’s not Quentin Tarantino and it’s not “Django Unchained” anymore. So you choose to keep everything in. If you’re going to read this comic, you’ll need to take the good with that inherent bad.
Final Verdict: 6.0 – Browse. Great art, but the script will serve a film better than a comic book.
