Jim Henon's The Dark Crystal Sequel Script to be Turned Into 12 Issue Comic Book Series

[JD]

They announced in November that the script The Power of The Dark Crystal, the unproduced sequel to Jim Henson's cult classic fantasy movie The Dark Crystal will be coming out as a 12 issue comic book series from Boom! Studios imprint, Archaia. The original script was by David Odell, the writer of the first movie, and Anette Odell and Craig Pearce, and the comic book will be written by Si Spurrier with art by Kelly and Nicole Matthews.
Here's the description of issue #1, which comes this coming Tuesday, Feb. 15:

In celebration of the 35th anniversary of Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal, return to the world of Thra in an official sequel to the beloved fantasy film. Discover an all-new race of creatures called Firelings that live in a realm near the planet's core, based on official character designs by Brian Froud. Years have passed since the events of the original film, and though Jen and Kira have ruled Thra as King and Queen, bringing Gelfling back to the land, they have become distracted by power and can no longer feel or see the needs of the world the way they once did. Thurma is a young Fireling tasked with stealing a shard of the Dark Crystal to restore power to her realm. Along the way she'll befriend the young Gelfling Kensho, bring back the Skeksis and Mystics, and embark on one incredible adventure

The Dark Cystal is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I've been dying to see story since it was first announced back in May 2005. I am disappointed it won't be a movie, but after seeing what I'm Archaia did with their prequel graphic novel trilogy, The Dark Crystal: Creation Myths, I'm happy to see it as a comic.

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

This sounds great, I'm in the same boat as you and thisnis great news! I'm excited!

 

[JD]

I was hoping I'd be able to find a preview somewhere, but it doesn't look like they've released one.
I'm wondering if there's going to be a lot of expansion from the original script, because 12 issues is a lot for a movie adaptation. It seems like most of the ones I've come across are usually are 4 or 5 issues, so I'm wondering how this one ended up so long.
I just saw that they released the original script for Tale of Sand, Archaia's previous unproduced Henson script, so maybe if this does well enough they'll do the same for PotDC.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ Depends how many pages each issue is. Most comics have a lot of ads, no?

I think 12 would do a movie justice.

 

[JD]

Most of the ones I've read haven't really had that many adds these days.
Here are some of the more recent movie adaptations I know of:
Star Trek (2009): 6 issues, 147 page collected edition
The Wrath of Kahn (adapted in 2009): 3 issues
The Force Awakens: 6 issues, 154 page collected edition
GI Joe: Rise of Cobra: 4 issues
Guardians of the Galaxy: 2 issues
Thor: 2 issues

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

How do those compare with the movies? Anything get omitted or compressed?

I've only ever read novelizations of movies (Start Trek & Star Wars mostly), and those novels obviously had more than the movies.

 

[JD]

I'm not sure, I haven't read them myself, but I do know from the reviews of The Force Awakens one that it did skip a few things, but it didn't sound like it was enough stuff to make up 6 more issues. And it's also worth keeping in mind that the first Dark Crystal movie is only 93 minutes, while the shortest of those is The Wrath of Khan is 112. So if PoTDC is around the same length of the first one you'd expect it to be quite a bit shorter than them.

 

[JD]

The first issue came out today, and I got it, but I haven't read it yet.

 

[Ithekro]

Hope it proves to be an interesting story.

 

[JD]

I just finished the issue and it was pretty good. It's mostly just introducing the new character Thurma, the Fireling and setting up the new Gelfling lead world, but it is pretty interesting. The Gelfling society isn't quite the big happy utopia I was kind of expecting though, which I actually think makes it more interesting. Just one warning though,

Spoiler: Kira and Jen in the issue

Kira and Jen don't really do anything until the last couple pages.

I also got the 30th Anniversary Labyrinth comic, but I wasn't sure if I should post my thoughts here, or in the general comics thread. I'm not going to read it today though, I want to get back to the Star Trek novel I've been working on.