Friday, March 30, 2007

Extensive review of Go, Diego, Go Live! in today's Post

In a move that I can only approve of, the Post devoted a lengthy column to reviewing The Great Jaguar Rescue, a life-action theatrical version of the Dora animation spin-off Go, Diego, Go. I'm absolutely serious about that approval too - comics have a long tradition of being adapted into theatrical versions - it's been happening since the very beginning. It happened with movies too - this year's bumper crop is by no means anything new. You should have seen the screens in 1905*

Coming tomorrow - a tour of Geppi's Entertainment Museum, and finally the Stagger Lee signing report.

*ok, I'm guessing at the biggest year, but these comics movies were big. Trust me. And there's really good articles about theater adaptations too. A guy named Mark Winchester did a lot of good research. Here's his citations from my Comics Research Bibliography:

Winchester, Mark D. 1990. George McManus, comic strip theatricals and vaudeville [thesis]. Ohio State University.

Winchester, Mark D. 1992. The Yellow Kid and the origins of comic book theatricals: 1895-1898. Theatre Studies 37:32-55.

Winchester, Mark D. 1993. Cartoon theatricals: A chronology. Theatre Studies 38:67-92.

Winchester, Mark D. 1993. Comic strip theatricals in public and private collections: A case study. Popular Culture in Libraries 1(1):67-76.

Winchester, Mark D. 1995. Hully Gee, It's a War!!! The Yellow Kid and the coining of 'yellow journalism.' Inks 2(3; Nov):22-37.

Winchester, Mark D. 1995. Litigation and early comic strips: The lawsuits of Outcault, Dirks and Fisher. Inks 2(2; May):16-25.

Winchester, Mark D. 1995. Cartoon Theatricals from 1896 to 1927: Gus Hill's Cartoon Shows for the American Road Theatre [dissertation]. Ohio State University.

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