Capitol Comics #2: The Washington Monument: Spider-Man: Homecoming movie adaptation - Mayhem at the Monument (2017)

 by Chris Shields

This series highlights pages from my collection of original comic art that depict Washington, DC monuments and buildings.  As a long-time Washington DC resident, it is always exciting to see the extraordinary town depicted in comics.

Published in 2017 to coincide with the release of Spider-Man: Homecoming, the Mayhem at the Monument book published by LB Kids is an exciting use of a landmark to help dial-up the suspense.  These are pencil sketches made prior to the final artwork.

Why did the movie depict Washington DC? 

In the interview with Jon Watts, director of the movie, he answers this question:

Q When you started on Homecoming, did you make a list of things that you were not going to do? And then were there things that are just so inherent to Spider-Man that you knew you would have to include, and would just have to come up with a more clever way to incorporate them into your version?

Watts: That’s what we tried to do with everything. Like if anything seemed familiar, we tried to come up with something else. The reason to make this movie is to show people things they’ve never seen before and to take them on a journey that they’ve never been on before. So that was actually a great creative limitation, to make everything new. Spider-Man still had to shoot webs and swing around every once in awhile, but then you would come up with, well, what haven’t we seen Spider-Man do? Let’s take away buildings. Let’s throw him in the suburbs and see what he has to do, if he has to go from rooftop to rooftop. Or send him to Washington DC, make him climb up the side of the Washington Monument. What are you going to do then when there’s only one building? What’s that going to look like? So that was the fun challenge, to just keep trying to come up with something we haven’t seen before and keep pushing that.

Why is Steve Kurth the perfect artist for this book? 

Artist Steve Kurth is the penciler for the book, and uses unique storytelling skills to convey the movie in a condensed form.  The Washington Monument rescue depicted relies on dramatic foreshortening, long vertical perspectives, and clear staging.  Kurth has been working for all of the major publishers and in comics for over 25 years. His work can be seen at https://www.instagram.com/stevekurthart/   

As Steve notes in his LinkedIn profile:

"I’ve had the great privilege of working with some incredible editors over the years who have taught me about the art of story and collaboration, as well as some of the best writers and storytellers I could ever hope learn from.  I have spent my entire career breaking down and translating ideas, descriptions and dialogue into the telling of story, be it a single image or sequential. I’m comfortable with a variety of styles and am very familiar with storytelling..".

Link to buy a copy of the book.

 

The elevator rising through the center of the Monument menaces MJ and Spider-Man