I'm trying to decide which form I should take for a story I've been working on which is that BDSM romance story I had a thread on a while ago. I'm down to two options: a comic book series or a TV show since this story will be driven by long-term storylines. So I've decided to ask you guys out on the web which you think it is better and why.
BDSM in comics tend to be more stylized, but can also be more truthful in it's depiction. A (fictional?) modern television show with any kind of BDSM theme would have to be blunted down. A show like "Nip/Tuck" might get close to the reality of such a relationship. A story set in a cyber-punk world could have a network TV show that had a loving romance between a true dominate partner with a counter-part who enjoyed the daily receipt of pain, injuries and humiliation. How long ago was your previous romance story thread?
Considering the "niche" audience for your project-comics. TV relies on a large audience and an ongoing series about BSDM-not going to find a sustainable audience or viable sponsors. IMO.
Unless you went for premium cable, all you'd find is a pig ignorant audience who will just see the relationship you are trying to portray as abusive instead of the genuine expression of love and trust such relationships can be.
Nowadays, a comic seems a good way to try to launch a TV series. It seems a lot of comics are optioned for TV/movies and not just the big superhero types. A movies is being made from Kick Ass and AMC is making a series based on The Waking Dead.
Unless you have a love for the comic book medium - and you don't, or you wouldn't have to ask - stay away from it. There's way too much poor-to-mediocre crap polluting it now.
Joe - exactly what kind of relationship are we talking about here ? Are we talking about a couple who like to tie each other up occasionally or a full-on 24/7 TPE relationship ? Who is the dominant ? Who is the submissive ? I ask because the answers will strongly influence any suggestions I can make. I don't believe there are many American television companies who would buy a show about a 24/7 relationship with a male dominant. They'd be too worried about - misguided - complaints.
It's a more or less 24/7 relationship between a male dominant and a female switch (part-Dom, part-Sub). The switch is experienced in the arena of BDSM while the dominant is a newly bloomed player. But the relationship isn't going to be about just sex. There'll be love and normal problems that any other couple would go through. The story is at heart a drama driven by the characters' lives and emotional struggles like I said in my BDSM romance thread. "A Beaker full of death": I do have love for the comic book medium. I'm a big fan of Preacher, Y: The Last Man, Fables, Watchmen, and a few Batman graphic novels like The Dark Knight Returns. Just that I have an equal love for TV shows like Six Feet Under, Breaking Bad, and Dexter.
You see, that's a show that even I (as someone who finds fiction that is purely about romance boring) might watch. But with a 24/7 relationship at some point you're going to have the man choosing what the woman eats in a restaurant. Or he'll tell her to wear a skirt that's shorter than she's comfortable with or he'll come home one day and expect to find his dinner on the table or he'll want sex in the middle of the night and "darling, I've got a headache" just won't cut it. In each of these cases, the woman will have to do as her dominant says. Not only that, but she will have to be seen to feel good about it. Now for you or me, that'd be no problem because we know that this is a choice she made of her own free will and she gains pleasure from it. To the average American TV viewer, however, this may very well be objectionable because the modern TV woman isn't allowed to be like that. That's the way women are in Saudi Arabia or Iran, not here, they'll say.
Oh, I made a mistake. What I meant is that eventually it grows into a 24/7 relationship. In the beginning, they start off as acquaintances.
I really hate to be so cynical about this, but unless you are really careful about showing how this woman wants this relationship and loves her partner because he knows how to dominate her and not despite of it, I can see the uninformed masses getting a tad upset.
This topic has no chance on network TV with the uninformed masses as viewers anyway. It belongs on premium cable where a sophisticated audience can (and does) accept a lot of shows about socially unacceptable things. In fact, socially unacceptable things are the Hot New Thing on premium and basic cable - Big Love, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Weeds. I'm kind of surprised that premium cable hasn't glommed onto BDSM already (and wouldn't be surprised to learn, either, that they already have a show in the works.) And your fears are way off base. Look at the shitty way women are treated on Mad Men, and that show gets awards up the wazoo. And don't get me started on Big Love, yeekers. It's like Dexter - we see a serial killer, we get his point of view, but never get the sense that the creators of the show are apologizing for him. There's a difference in depicting something as objective reality in a fictional story and depicting it in a way that signals that the creators of the fiction approve. You need a reasonably sophisticated audience to be sure they can tell the difference, but that's your cable audience so no problem there. You could create a BDSM show with a male dominant and not "shock" the HBO/Showtime crowd in the least. Your problem will be the opposite - you better shock them a little or risk losing their interest. The bar for "shocking" keeps getting set higher and higher. Frankly, I'd forget the BDSM idea altogether as insufficiently shocking. Do a show about a cannibal instead: modern-day, urban-dwelling, neighbors don't have a clue. But if you want to go with BDSM, and you're serious about getting it on TV, do some market research first because my strong hunch is that the market for a show with a male submissive would be much bigger than for a male dominant. Tap into the fantasy lives of more people for better Nielsens, that's the ticket. Throw in some hot lipstick lesbian dominatrices and you're golden.
Re: OP: Comic book. Probably eaiser to get that made, no? I've never heard of people making TV shows in their basements, anyway. I like that. Give it a Dexter twist: He only eats people who want to be eaten. So he's like Dr. Kevorkian if Kevorkian treated his patients to dinner afterwards. But yeah, cannibalism is a better show topic. I say this, though, because I just find cannibalism innately funny. Don't ask me why.