MK McFadden

I find the adaptation of materials so interesting. To take a story and change the medium that it is presented in is a challenge that I don’t know that I would want to do in the next 5 years. There is a balance between being true to the source material and also making the new thing something that can stand on its own. We have a lot of TV shows and films out that are sourced from graphic novels.

One of those shows is iZombie, which had a 13-episode first season and the second season starts in October .

I have been watching iZombie on CW and really enjoying myself. It’s funny. Each episode’s story is tight and different from the next while the first season’s over arching line of finding a cure for Liv’s zombieness and the growing zombie population of Seattle was handled well. I am not surprised because I am a fan of Rob Thomas, who created and ran Veronica Mars, which I love.

The general premise is that Liv Moore, successful doctor, goes to a party, gets infected by a zombie and becomes an assistant coroner to be able to eat brains. While eating brains, she solves murders and finds out how she became a zombie in the first place.

I was fascinated that Liv Moore of the TV show iZombie is in fact nothing like Gwen Dylan of the comic iZombie.

Gwen Dylan is a grave digger who lives in a crypt with a ghost. Her family thinks she’s dead and she doesn’t remember much of her past life. There are vampires, were-terriers, immortal beings and even a secret government agency sent to track ‘others’ in this comic that is set in Eugene, Oregon. The ride only gets more fantastical from there.

The entire comic series is so far removed from the TV show that I wonder how they even came up with the show as it is now. The only similarity is that a girl becomes a zombie and eats brains. That’s it.

I must say that this may be my favorite type of adaptation. iZombie the TV show is great and I will definitely be watching season 2. However, iZombie the comic is its own story and is no way cheapened or changed by the TV show. Both exist separate from the other, you don’t need to have read the comic to understand the TV show and you don’t need to watch the show to understand the comic. They live in two separate worlds.

That’s how adaptations should work in my opinion.