Happy! facing the comics: four issues, two seasons

Four issues become two seasons. Decryption source by source, without disclosing the outcomes.

As in each article in this series, only verified information (creators, distribution, dates, publishers) is stated; the comparative analysis is ours, without reproducing dialogue or protected images.

2012: four issues, and not one more

Happy! #1 published in 2012 by Image, on a scenario of Grant Morrison and a drawing of Darrick Robertson.

The story is brief —four numbers— and fully completed. A former police officer turned hitman, at the end of his rope, begins to see a small blue winged unicorn that no one else sees, and who entrusts him with a mission.

Brevity is not an accident: it is the chosen format. The story takes place over one night and a few days, with a single idea pushed to its conclusion.

The designer deserves to be located, because his contribution determines the effect.Darrick Robertson practices a harsh, strong realism, attentive to damaged bodies and marked faces. Placing a cartoon creature in the middle of these boards produces a shock that neither register would have produced alone.

The most unbalanced source/adaptation ratio in the corpus

Here is the particularity of this file, and it is quantifiable.

Four numbers give, when read, about an hour. The series draws two seasons. The relationship between the source and the adaptation is without equivalent in this corpus, which nevertheless examined dozens of cases.

This corpus established a typology of situations according to the coverage offered by the source. A work completed and long provides a written ending and a path (the most favorable case). A partial source requires building the flesh around a skeleton.No sources fully releases.

The present case is a fourth regime: a source complete but tiny.

The difference is real. This story lacks nothing — it has a beginning, a middle, an end, and its conciseness is part of its success. But it simply doesn't contain enough material for a long format.

The adaptation therefore finds itself faced with an uncomfortable choice: respecting the source amounts to making a mini-series of a few hours; to draw a series of them amounts to continue after the end.

It is the second option that was chosen, and it deserves to be named straightforwardly: the first season adapts, the second extends a finished work.

The characters, from paper to screen

• The killer— Former fallen police officer; the story passes through him.
• happy— Winged blue unicorn, visible to a single man.
• Sponsors— Criminal environment of the paper.
• The entourage— Very largely invented for the series.
• The city— Urban winter, preserved atmosphere.

What conciseness did, and duration undoes

The most interesting point of this file is not loyalty but proportion, and it is worth stopping there.

Such a frontal idea — a killer, an imaginary unicorn — works by shock. The reader is gripped, the story does not give him time to get used to it, and he closes before the strangeness becomes a setting.

Extended over two seasons, the same idea is subject to an implacable law: the spectator gets done. What was inconceivable in the first episode becomes normal in the tenth. The unicorn ceases to be an anomaly and becomes an ordinary secondary character.

This corpus formulates from there a principle that it had not yet stated: certain ideas have a lifetime, and stretching wears them out more surely than infidelity.

There is a lesson here for the comic book reader, and it illuminates a common intuition. We often have the impression that a short story is “better” than a long story on the same subject, without knowing how to justify it. The reason is this:brevity protects strangeness. A work that closes quickly does not give the reader time to trivialize what it shows.

This observation argues, incidentally, for limited series which collectors often neglect in favor of long series. Four well-performed numbers sometimes produce an effect that a hundred will never produce.

A unicorn, and the seriousness of the treatment

One final point is worth making, because it explains why this story works when its summary seems like a joke.

The process is based on a register gap rigorously maintained. The absurd element – ​​a little winged unicorn – is introduced without a wink, without ironic comment, and the world around it does not distort to accommodate it: it remains sordid, violent and cold.

It's this lack of complicity with the reader doing everything. A story that would point out her own extravagance would defuse her; he puts it down and continues.

This corpus observes that the process is common in independent publishing and rarely executed well. There is a strong temptation to reassure the reader, to indicate to them that we know what we are doing. Each such signal weakens the effect.

The comic reader will recognize here a skill specific to the medium. A box has no tone of voice: it shows. A unicorn drawn in a dirty alley cannot be presented with a smirk — it is simply there, with the same visual status as the rest.

This is a real advantage of drawing on the screen, where the performance of an actor, music or framing permanently betrays the intention.

Grant Morrison, and the taste for ideas pushed too far

A word about the screenwriter, because his way of working illuminates this title.

Grant Morrison has produced, over several decades, a work recognizable by a constant process: taking an absurd premise and treating it with a totally serious, without ever shrinking from its consequences.

This operating mode has a practical consequence for the reader who discovers this author: his stories are often short and very dense, because an idea pushed to the limit does not need to be repeated.

This corpus therefore recommends a particular approach to this bibliography. Rather than looking for his most famous title, it is better to browse several of his limited series: we find, for a modest cost, a variety of proposals that no long series provides.

For the collector, it is also the best value in the segment. The short stories of a recognized author are easy to find, can be completed quickly, and escape the speculation that weighs on his best-known titles.

This bibliography finally has a rare advantage: it crosses both major publishers and independent publishing, which makes it possible to directly compare what the same author does with and without catalog constraints.

We observe in particular a constant: his best ideas almost always appear in his brief formats, where nothing obliges him to provide a sequel.

Collection side: which numbers to aim for after the series

Happy! #1(2012) is the piece to target, and its profile combines two favorable factors.

The first is the screenwriter's name. Grant Morrison has a readership that follows the author from title to title, regardless of ownership. As this corpus has noted elsewhere, a key indexed to an author moves slowly and rarely downward.

The second is the brevity even of the series. A limited series of four issues is easily completed — it's a goal achievable in a single search, for a modest budget.

This corpus also recommends this approach to those who are just starting out: building up complete limited series rather than accumulating isolated numbers from long series. We obtain coherent sets, readable from start to finish, and whose value is more readable than an incomplete collection.

The usual precautions apply: check the legal notices to distinguish a first printing from a reprint, and precisely identify the alternative covers.

As always, condition and gradation determine value; relying on real recent sales is strongly recommended.

Where to start reading

Read them four numbers in one go: this is how the story was conceived, and its conciseness is part of what it produces. Allow one hour. To extend the work of Grant Morrison features numerous short stories playing on the same gap between an absurd idea and a serious treatment.

Timeline to know

• 2012—Happy! #1 at Image, Morrison and Robertson.
• Four numbers— The story ends, complete.
• 2017— The TV series: season 1 adapts.
• 2019— Season 2 continues a completed work.

Its place in the saga and for the collector

This series adds a fourth diet to the typology of sources established by this corpus: after the completed and long work, the partial source and the absence of source, here is the source complete but tiny— a story that lacks nothing but does not contain enough for a long format, hence a second season which extends a finished work. Above all, it establishes a principle that this corpus had not formulated: certain ideas have a lifetime, and stretching wears them out more surely than infidelity — brevity protects the strangeness, leaving no time to trivialize it. For the collector, she pleads for an underestimated practice: creating complete limited series rather than accumulating isolated numbers.

The verdict: the idea kept, the proportion lost

• Loyalty: the impossible duo at the start, the visible unicorn of a single man, shameless violence, the contrast between innocence and sordidness, and urban winter as an atmosphere.
• Freedoms: an incommensurable duration, a plot prolonged beyond its end, invented secondary characters, accumulation in place of conciseness and an outdated outcome.
• Collectible numbers: Happy! #1 to #4 (2012), easy-to-complete limited series.

One hour of reading, two seasons of television. The adaptation didn't betray anything — it simply continued talking after the story had finished telling itself.

Frequently asked questions