Dorkgasm Gonzo Is God

Can You Dig It?

By

Michael C. Riedlinger

Editor-In-Chief

            Film adaptations usually go one of two ways.  Either they stick solely to the source material, recreating it frame by frame, or they veer off in their own direction so horribly, they may as well change the title.  So then, what happens when you take a classic Greek story, turn it into a novel, which then gets turned into a beloved cult classic that has almost as many versions as main characters, and then try to turn that into a comic book?  You get the skillfully represented The Warriors from Dabel Brothers Publishing.

            Anyone not familiar with the film needs to stop reading right now and go pick up the disk at a store and watch it.  Walter Hill’s version of the story varied widely from the novel it was based on, but actually stuck closer to the story of Anabasis, from Ancient Greece, of a group of soldiers trying to make it home through enemy territory.  David Atchison’s version here does a great job of capturing the feel of the opening credits from Hill’s director’s cut.  The Grecian origins of the story aren’t hidden, and we still get the sense that something unprecedented is about to go down.  The meeting with Cyrus in the park is ridiculous if you stop to think about it, and this book captures the tension the movie uses exceptionally well.  Before you know it, Cyrus has been shot and Cleon is getting a beat down.  Here’s where the comic really has an advantage over the film.  While the movie rushes us along and allows us to get caught up in the tumult that ensues, this version slows things down and in the process, there is a raw brutality that comes across that was missing from the film.

            This is executed deftly by the art of Chris DiBari.  If the pages resonate due to Atchison’s raw pacing, then DiBari’s art makes them feel like part of an ancient text from a lost civilization.  The aesthetic similarity to Mayan sacrificial paintings makes the meeting with Cyrus feel deadly, even before Luther pulls the trigger.  The imagery is twice as deadly as that found in any modern zombie comic, and feels just as hopelessly apocalyptic.  Overall, DiBari manages to take the iconic images that once seemed to impact us more subconsciously, and renders them with a newfound sinister clarity.  The streets of New York haven’t looked this dark and foreboding in more than thirty years.

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Image copyright Dabel Brothers Publishing

            Adaptations are never easy on anyone.  There’s a certain amount of trauma for the creators and the audience alike, trying to decide what parts of a beloved piece can be excised and what must be added to in order to make something relevant.  The team Dabel Brothers  have assigned to this book seem to have the single most important quality required in order to pull this off successfully.  Sam Raimi had it on Spiderman, Peter Jackson had it on Lord of the Rings, and Atchison and DiBari have it here:  a noticeable reverence and respect for the source material.  Their translation is as solid a work as Walter Hill’s film, and stands on its own better than many of the recent film adaptations from other companies.

            That said, there’s still one element of this adaptation that has me slightly on edge, and I’m not certain that everyone will see it as a negative.  The images all seem crisp and clean.  The colors are vibrant, the shadows dark and rich.  Gone from the film is a certain level of graininess that always made it feel like there was something dirty under the surface of every shot, and no one’s words get lost in the madness that erupts at every turn.  This effect was due, in large part, to the film stock in use at the time and some directors, like David Fincher, have used various techniques to readd that grainy quality to their works.  Gone are the gray shadows that seem to poison the whitest of whites in darkly lit films from this era, and we seem to see everything in The Warriors in crystal clear hi-def.

            Still, this doesn’t detract too much from the book, and it is as solid as it gets.  Word now is that Dabel Bros. has plans for a spinoff series once this adaptation runs its course, and I think that long-time fans of the film and newcomers alike will enjoy this revisiting of a cult classic.  There are already enough different versions of the film (check the “alternate versions” tab for it on IMDB) that this book falls right into place in both spirit and tone with its predecessors.  Even in comic book form, The Warriors still has the power to rock your face off.