Are Comic-Book and Animated Tie-Ins Ever Any Good?

Poking through the news yesterday, I came across two items. First, FOX's "Glee" will be getting a comic-book tie-in. Second, the next project involving the "Terminator" franchise will be the animated "Terminator 3000," in 3D naturally. Fans of both properties are doubtless pretty skeptical at the moment, and I don't blame them. Spin-offs to other media, especially when they involve comics or animation tend, to ring alarm bells. I'm not so familiar with the comics world, but boy have I seen my share of the animated projects. Does anyone remember "Highlander: The Search for Vengeance"? "Hellboy: Blood and Iron"? That "Van Helsing" animated thing, that probably also has a title with a colon in it?

There's nothing wrong with comics and animation, of course, and I have seen some spin-offs done well. Very well. It's no surprise that the most successful of these projects come at the hands of creators who are familiar with these mediums and understand how to use them. Joss Whedon, a lifelong comics lover who did a popular two-year stint on one of the "X-Men" books, has successfully continued the adventures of "Buffy: the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" as serialized comics, and has several "Firefly" projects in the works. (Alas, nothing for "Dollhouse" or "Dr. Horrible" yet.) And the recent series of direct-to-video DC Comics features from Warner Brothers Animation benefits greatly from involving a lot of the creative talent from the "Batman," "Superman," and "Justice League" cartoons that they produced for television during the 90s and 00s.

The worst ones are the fly-by-night one-shot projects from inexperienced hands. These are the ones greenlighted by executives who are trying to cash in on a trend, who've seen the animated segment of "Kill Bill" or the growing crowds and influence of Comic-Con, but don't really understand the appeal themselves. Because they have no experience, they're more susceptible to schlockmeisters and often get oddball results at best and totally unwatchable or unreadable dreck at worst. Online comics reviewers have a field day bashing old tie-in comics for everything from toy lines to heavy metal bands to professional wrestlers. As the readership has narrowed and production costs have grown over the years, the worst of them have mostly gone, but you'll still see groaners once in a while like the recent spate of President Obama tie-ins.

Sometimes it's not so easy to tell the good from the bad, or understand why some work while others fail spectacularly. Compare the two approaches taken by the creative minds behind "The Animatrix" and "Batman: Gotham Knight," which were both released with the second installments of their respective franchises. At first glance, nothing seems too different. Both are collections of shorts featuring Western properties, done in the style of Japanese anime. But it takes someone familiar with anime to realize that the Wachowski brothers took the trouble to find top-of-the line talent for "The Animatrix," including directors Shinichiro Watanabe, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, and Mahiro Maeda. Reportedly they even went to Mamoru Oshii, the director of "Ghost in the Shell," which any "Matrix" fanboy knows was a big influence on the Wachowskis' work.

"Batman: Gotham Knight" used the same studios as "The Animatrix," Madhouse and Studio 4°C, but the production wasn't up to par. Many of the shorts were decent, but you could tell that several of the "world's most revered animation visionaries" were actually mostly middling TV anime directors or animators new to directing. Also, while the Wachowskis wrote two of the "Animatrix" shorts, several of their Japanese collaborators were left to their own devices in conceiving and writing the ones they were responsible for. "Batman" was less of a two-way street. All of the segments were written by Western writers, none of whom showed any particular affinity for animation. Visuals were left to the directors, but the narratives were not. The difference in quality between the two projects was plain.

I don't want to write off either of these new spin-offs yet. There's no reason why "Glee" shouldn't be a comic book and "Terminator" shouldn't be animated. I had a great discussion with a friend about why the "Glee" brand of nerdiness belonged at Comic-Con, and this would make for a great closing argument. But I remain apprehensive too. I've seen too many of these projects end in cringeworthy product. An upcoming one I'm keeping an eye on right now is the announced "Supernatural" anime, based on the CW series about a pair of demon hunting brothers. Sure, it could come out well, but it's more likely to end up like the "Witchblade" anime. Or the "Romeo and Juliet" anime. Or an awful little live-action-to-anime mess called "Night Head Genesis" that has a very similar premise to "Supernatural."

Haven't seen it? Lucky you.