Outcast against comics: adapting a work still in progress

Adapt a work that is not yet finished writing. 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.

2014: horror brought back to the kitchen

Outcast #1 published in 2014 by Skybound, on a scenario of Robert Kirkman and a drawing of Paul Azaceta.

The starting point is seemingly classic – a man confronted with possessions – but his treatment is not.

The story takes place in a small, rural, poor town, and the possessions do not strike strangers: they strike the protagonist's family, since his childhood. The subject is therefore not the fight against an external evil but a family history of which we do not know how to disentangle what is supernatural and what is ordinary violence.

It is this movement which makes the quality of the title. The horror is domestic, installed in kitchens and living rooms, and it is very similar to what we talk about in hushed tones in a family.

The drawing of Paul Azaceta supports exactly this project: spare compositions, large empty areas, clear shadows. He leaves a lot of silence on the page.

The rare fact: an adaptation in parallel with the publication

This is the particularity of this file, and this corpus has no other such clear example.

The series starts in 2016, two years after the launch of the comic, while it is still being published. The author therefore writes the rest of the paper while the screen adapts the beginning.

This simultaneity produces an unusual situation, and the consequences must be unfolded.

First, adaptation cannot know the END. She is working on a work whose outcome does not yet exist, including for its author.

Then, the pace of production diverges. A television season consumes, in a few months of broadcasting, what a monthly comic book takes two years to produce. The screen catch up mechanically the paper.

Finally, and most interestingly, the relationship becomes reciprocal. The comic's author now writes knowing that an adaptation exists, with actors, production decisions and an audience. This corpus does not claim to know what this changed in a specific case – but the situation is objective.

This corpus has documented numerous reverse flows, where the screen moves back to the paper after the fact. Here's something different: a simultaneous influence, where the two objects move forward while looking at each other.

The characters, from paper to screen

• Kyle Barnes— The man whose entourage is struck.
• The man of the church— The investigation partner, and his doubt.
• The family— The true terrain of the story.
• The city— Small, poor, where everything is known.
• The possessed— Close friends, never strangers.

The same author, two opposing strategies

A comparison is necessary, because it is instructive: this corpus examined another adaptation by the same screenwriter, taken from a series which ran much longer.

Both situations are exactly inverses, and the comparison illuminates both.

In the previous case, the adaptation had a considerable lead: dozens of issues published, an established universe, an established audience. She was able to deviate widely from her source while still keeping a reserve from which to draw.

Here, the adaptation starts almost at the same time as the source. It has no advance, no reserve, no prior public. She must follow rather than choose.

This corpus draws a useful observation on the calendar adaptation, a question rarely asked.

Adapt late— a completed or very advanced work — offers a written ending, proven material and an existing audience. Adapt early offers the opposite: no guarantee, but also no expectations to disappoint.

This corpus has rather observed that the first strategy gives the best results. An adaptation almost never benefits from getting ahead of its source: it deprives itself of what makes up its material, without anything compensating.

Skybound, or the author who became a publisher

An element of context is worth asking, because it sheds light on the way in which this title was designed.

This comic appears under a structure founded by its own screenwriter, within a publisher practicing author ownership. The author is therefore not only a creator: he is also editor of his work and that of others.

This corpus encountered several cases of authors involved in the adaptation of their work — an author co-directing her film, a screenwriter writing his series himself. Here is an additional degree: the author controls the whole chain, from publication to audiovisual exploitation.

The effects are ambivalent and deserve to be named.

On the positive side, no rights negotiations come to thwart the project, and decisions are made quickly. A work can be adapted two years after its launch, which would be unthinkable in a traditional circuit.

On the downside, this speed delete a filter. In an ordinary circuit, the time which separates publication from adaptation also serves to verify that a work has found its audience and holds up over time. Here, there is no obligation to wait for this confirmation.

This is probably the most economical explanation for the timing of this file: the adaptation came early because nothing stopped him.

A horror without a showable monster

A final obstacle deserves to be named, because it is specific to this subject.

La possession is a non-creature horror theme. There is nothing to show but a familiar face behaving differently — no silhouette, no shape, no monster.

On paper, this constraint becomes a strength. A drawing can imperceptibly modify a look, a posture, a framing, and let the reader decide if they saw something. The doubt remains.

On screen, the same scene relies on an actor, and the interpretation slice: either the play signals possession or it does not signal it. Ambiguity is much more difficult to maintain over the duration of a shot than over a fixed frame.

This corpus therefore formulates a final complementary principle: the visual ambiguity holds better on a still image than on a played image. This is one of the reasons why drawn psychological horror often achieves, with paltry means, what an expensive production struggles to produce.

Collection side: which numbers to aim for after the series

Outcast #1(2014) is the number to aim for, and it presents a configuration that this corpus has not yet described.

This title was launched by a screenwriter whose previous series had become a global phenomenon. Buyers therefore anticipated: the first issue was acquired in large numbers, not for its own sake, but because it could become “the next”.

This anticipation has two opposing effects that must be understood.

It first caused high print runs and careful conservation: many copies, often in excellent condition, set aside upon release. The rarity is therefore low, including at the high end.

She then explains a frequent disappointment in the market. A purchased number in anticipation a success that does not occur at the expected level remains permanently above its actual demand. Sellers hold on to the anticipation price, buyers do not follow.

This corpus therefore formulates a general warning: the first issues launched in the wake of a very great success by the same author are the worst speculative bets in the medium. They combine high circulation, exemplary conservation and expectation already integrated into the price.

Conversely, they are excellent reading purchases: abundant, in good condition, inexpensive to collect.

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

Where to start reading

Read the series in order, as a collection. Pay attention to silent pages of Azaceta, where nothing is said and where the main thing is played out — this is what the television series had to replace with dialogue and duration. To continue in the same vein, the other titles published by this auteur studio share its taste for slow horror.

Timeline to know

• 2014— Outcast #1 at Skybound, Kirkman and Azaceta.
• 2016— The series is starting, the comic is still in progress.
• Afterwards— The screen mechanically catches the paper.
• 2018— End of the series after two seasons.

Its place in the saga and for the collector

This series brings to the corpus a new configuration: adaptation in parallel of publication, where the screen cannot know the end, mechanically catches up with the paper, and where the relationship becomes reciprocal — a simultaneous influence rather than a reversed flow after the fact. It also allows us to ask the question of calendar adaptation: adapting late offers a written ending, proven material and an audience; adapt early offers no guarantee and deprives itself of its material without compensation. For the collector, it describes the worst speculative bet in the medium: a first issue launched in the wake of great success from the same author combines high circulation, exemplary conservation and expectation already integrated into the price.

The verdict: the atmosphere preserved, the end out of reach

• Loyalty: the rural and poor setting, the possession as a family subject, the duo with the man of the church, the assumed slowness and the ambiguity on the nature of evil.
• Freedoms: a pace slowed further, graphic silences replaced by dialogue, subplots added, a changed order of revelations and an ending not reached.
• Collectible numbers: Outcast #1 (2014) — good read buy, bad speculative bet.

An adaptation that chased after a work still being written. She ended up stopping before she did — which was, from the start, the risk of leaving too soon.

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