Proving either that people love comic books or that Robert Kirkman is an unstoppable Hollywood juggernaut, AMC continues to show a lot of love to the four-color medium, ordering a 6 episode mini series called Heroes and Villains: The History of Comic Books for 2o17. The documentary series comes out of Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment and joins The Walking Dead, Fear the Walking Dead, Preacher Comic Book Men, Talking Dead and Talking Preacher on the comics programming slate of the net.
The six-episode hourlong series will premiere in 2017 and explore the stories, people and events that transformed the comic book industry. AMC touted that the series will offer origin stories to the untold history behind iconic characters as well as examine subjects including pop culture, race, gender and sexuality.
Kirkman, David Alpert and Skybounds’ TV division co-presidents Bryan and Sean Furst will produce.
“At the end of the day I am a comic fan first and foremost. I am a lover of the medium and the stories it enables people to tell,” Kirkman said. “I’m excited to partner with AMC once again to bring the stories of some the most influential people in comics to a television audience.”
“We are incredibly excited to continue our partnership with Robert, David and Skybound. Beyond The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead, they are prolific producers and publishers who have an amazing knowledge of comic book history and genre storytelling,” said Joel Stillerman, president of programming for both AMC and SundanceTV. “We believe going deep into the history behind some of the greatest comic books will be of great interest to this audience.”
Prediction: Kevin Smith will host this! There have been several “histories of comics” documentaries produced in the past but most of them focused on superhero comics. Given Kirkman’s interest in indie comics, hopefully this will expand beyond that. And hey, if there’s an opening for a female talking head you know where to find me!
99% of books, articles and documentaries billing themselves as ‘The History of Comics’ are basically just ‘The History of AMERICAN SUPERHERO Comics’. I remain to be convinced this will be anything otherwise.
I’ll be happy if they just remember that not all comics come from the US…
A Kirkman series addressing “race, gender and sexuality” in comics? Is he going to mention the problems in his own comic and TV series?
Really wish they had picked an actual comics historian.
I keep hoping that Comic Book Confidential will release a deluxe edition featuring ALL of the footage shot.
http://www.filmswelike.com/store-items/comic-book-confidential
But it probably doesn’t exist…
The title of this series is prefixed with “Heroes and Villains”. I am not holding out much hope this will cover significantly more than American English language super heroes, with maybe some lip service to EC Comics and Seduction Of The Innocent.
Oh man, I hope they talk to Stan Lee about how Marvel heroes have real problems and how Jack Kirby would draw these wild images! Maybe throw in Michael Chabon talking about how Superman was created by two Jewish kids from Ohio? How about mentioning how comics got topical in the 70s, perhaps accompanied by a pan-in shot of the Green Arrow cover with Speedy shooting up?
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