Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

It's a really good book for those who want to find out how the comic became the movie, in such a short time. It's loaded with commentary from Mark Millar, artist John Romita Jr., director Matthew Vaughn, the actors and production crew. They go on about the characters, casting and story and the funny incidents that happen during production, like Hit-Girl losing her teeth, or making weapons using stuff bought online.

High resolution film stills, set photos, comic panels and other production art fill the pages. Some of the pictures are so huge you can see the pores on the skin. There are also additional art drawn for the movie, like the drawings of villains by Nicolas Cage. Most of the blood in the book actually come from the comic panels. I haven't read the comics but the beautiful comic drawings entices me to check them out.

Note that there might be a bit of spoiler revealed but not really a big deal.

Slapped on the back cover is a parental advisory label warning of explicit content. Some of the funny quotes happen to be vulgar ones -- delivered by a kid no less -- and there are some nudity (small stills) as well. This book, just like the movie, is for the mature audience.

This book is an entertaining blend of outrageous fun and the mundane.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

I am at somewhat of a disadvantage. I have never read Kick Ass, the comic. That, however, does not detract from my enjoyment of the Titan book celebrating the comic and the upcoming film.
The concept of Kick Ass is marvelous. With no power comes no responsibility. Well, that is kind of true. David Lizewski, is a comic book fan, who asks the tough question. Why don't people do this in real life? It can't be that hard saving people from villains, and the like, can't it? Experience is the best teacher, and what the heck, what's a few broken bones. Heal, and get at it one more time, right?
Yep.
It is extremely rare for a comic book to be created the same time as a film is in pre-production, especially for a new property. It doesn't hurt that Mark Millar already had a professional reputation for production already, I guess. With John Romita Jr tapped for art on the comic book, and his experience in film work to date, it was really a natural progression for both.
This book reflects an all around look at the process. Input from actors, writers, artists, designers, and scads of art taken from production notes, the comic books, and random sketches. Design wise, I am amazed at the finished product, it represents an extreme view of what might be a franchise. It is varied, interesting, and even includes fake blood splats on the page numbers. Can't imagine what this would have looked like had Titan taken the safe route.
As the film is due soon, there are production stills, photographs of sets and stars with and without makeup/costumes, script snippets, and some great comments from Nick Cage. I can't imagine not meeting Adam West, as he had, and not coming away impressed!
Kick-Ass, Creating the Comic, Making the Movie is an invaluable look at what can happen when a property strikes the right balance between comic and film. Once the film is available, this book will sit alongside Kick-Ass, the Movie and be a complete package!
[...]

Ever watch DVD "making-of" featurettes for movies you aren't all that crazy about? Sometimes, if they're thoughtfully done instead of just being a PR reel, they can help you learn more about certain creative and technical processes. But if you're an admirer of the film, so much the better. Well, that's pretty much the case with Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie. In fact, if you're fan of either of the pop culture incarnations mentioned in the title, you'll be in heaven. But even if you're lukewarm on the property itself, there is much to recommend about this handsome companion volume.

With its inventive layout, well-chosen text, and overall intelligence of presentation, the book resembles a super-extended feature article in a glossy magazine. A magazine that happens to boast a topnotch design department, that is. Imagine Entertainment Weekly doing a couple of special issues on Kick-Ass, then increase the length, trim size, and paper quality so they're closer to art-book level and you'll get a sense of how inviting this book is. Of course the real fun in such magazine pieces is exploring all the factoids, asides, and revealing quotes that are tucked away in the sidebars--and one of the main virtues of this book is that it reads like a compilation of such sidebars, all the boring parts having already been cut out.

That should partly explain the above reference to "well-chosen" text. But it also bears mentioning that the text itself, although built around an engaging autobiographical strand from Kick-Ass cocreator Mark Millar, is really an artfully edited collection of interview snippets conducted by Mark Salisbury, Stacy Mann, and Jeremy Smith. As a result, the colorful spreads are peppered with stand-alone paragraphs with intriguing heads like "[director] Matthew Vaughn on The U.S. Ratings System" or "[movie cowriter] Jane Goldman on Hit-Girl and Swearing."

Yet Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie isn't simply a bunch of pull-quotes quickly thrown together to create a trade paperback movie tie-in. What really gives the book value as a true reference work are all the interesting primary source materials that are scattered throughout. There are reproduced pages from both the film and comic scripts, emails between Millar and Vaughn, and even blog posts from Chloë (Hit-Girl) Moretz. And of course there's tons of production stills from the movie and generous helpings of art from cocreator John Romita, Jr., including sketches and other material that appears never to have been published before. What makes all of this more notable from a media studies angle is that with Kick-Ass we're not dealing with a conventional page-to-screen adaptation but rather a concept that pretty much evolved as both graphic narrative and film at the same time, so that ideas that surfaced in the movie development context found expression in the later issues of the comic miniseries.

Don't look for a lot of highbrow analysis about the themes in Kick-Ass or how the film fits into the whole revisionist superhero trend of the past few years (e.g., Hancock, Special, Watchmen). And that's something we should probably be thankful for. After all, this is a book that puts the creators' perspectives front and center and listening to the talent sound off about the profundity of their own work is what makes so many DVD commentaries unbearable. Yes, to some extent the book is bit of a love-fest, but it never goes over-the-top with self-congratulation. Besides, as Kick-Ass's many fans already know, there's a lot to love about this title.
-- Peter Gutiérrez