Just a few days after it was announced that Aquaman helmer James Wan was going to dive back into the world of comics producing an adaptation of Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino’s Gideon Falls, comes more news on that front as Wan is also joining forces with Italian publisher Sergio Bonelli Editore to produce a television adaptation of Dylan Dog.
Dylan Dog, the horror comics series which famed novelist Umberto Eco once described glowingly: “I can read the Bible, Homer, or Dylan Dog for several days without being bored”, centers on the title character who is a paranormal investigator. In his travails he faces off with all manner of ghouls and goblins, and in a way, the series created by Tiziano Sclavi, is a bit of a precursor for Hellboy. To that end, Dark Horse even got Mike Mignola to draw covers for their English language translations of six of these comics.
The original plan for Bonelli Entertainment (before Wan’s Atomic Monster signed aboard) was to create a ten episode English language adaptation of Dylan Dog, which would then form the basis for an entire shared universe of characters from Bonelli’s catalog (Nathan Never, Mister No, Dampyr, Dragonero, Il Confine, and Martin Mystere), though with Dampyr already in production as a live-action film set for release in 2020, the future on any possible expansion is a little less clear.
Dylan Dog was last adapted for the poorly received Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, which starred former (and now again) Superman Brandon Routh in the lead role. Cemetary Man, starring Rupert Everett, was a more successful, looser adaptation (plus Dylan was drawn to look like Everett).
I wonder if they’ll be able to use Groucho this time, his sidekick that is a Groucho Marx impersonator. When Dark Horse translated a few of the stories, they had to digitally remove his mustache and change his name to Felix! But really, I just hope this means we’ll get more English translations over here, these books are too fun to not be seen by as wide an audience as possible, especially with over 500 comics to pick from.
