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We have quite a bunch of questions, general as well as pertaining to specific works, about the intricacies of adapting books into movies, which are tagged . Likewise is there the similar when the source material is a comic. But seeing that comic books are in turn also books, I wonder if the latter is really needed.

Now I see that comics might be a significantly different medium compared to "normal" books. But I'm not sure if the actual questions about comic adaptations would be so much different from book adaptation questions in their content and nature. Separating those two question categories where there isn't so much content-wise separation might only introduce confusion.

So my question is how to proceed with those tags? For this I see basically three possibilities:

  • Make a synonym of .

  • Introduce a more general tag, like or and make the existing one synonyms of the general one. This could also help with other related adaptation questions, like movies based on religious stories, or some questions under the (itself questionable) tag.

  • Just leave everything as is.

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  • Lock the 3rd option for me ;)
    – Ankit Sharma Mod
    Jul 29, 2014 at 20:38

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I like the idea of , but I think to keep the purists happy we'd need to have too as a synonym.

The primary reason I think they're separate from is the pictures themselves. Unlike books which have illustrations, the pictures in comics are canonical: that is what the character looks like and the people involved in writing or creating it have decided it. Based on this, previous fans of the work will have a much clearer idea of what the characters and setting should look and act like and questions regarding the adaptation may well spend more time talking about this than book adaptations.

The second reason is that they should be separate is that comic adaptations could be an absolutely huge category, as it could include most questions in these tags:

I'm of course not saying any question about thoses movie would be tagged , only those about the actual adaptation process, but that with any of those movies the chance for asking about their nature as adaptations rises as well. Though we don't have many yet, comic movies are gaining in popularity so I think we can expect it to grow more when the summer releases hit.

I also disagree with as that could theoretically apply to anything which wasn't completely original (which is basically nothing these days).

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  • I personally feel an all encompassing adaptation tag is more than sufficient. Sure comics can be seen as a story board of some kind, but the overall discussion would surround the adaptation process itself. Synonyms could be fine, but having completely separate tags to essentially discuss the same thing just seems silly to me.
    – MattD
    Jul 18, 2014 at 21:45
  • @MattD Maybe add that as another answer and people can vote between them then?
    – Crow T Robot
    Jul 18, 2014 at 22:09
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An all encompassing tag.

I personally feel an all encompassing adaptation tag is more than sufficient. Sure comics can be seen as a story board of some kind, but the overall discussion would surround the adaptation process itself. Synonyms could be fine, but having completely separate tags to essentially discuss the same thing just seems silly to me.

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Personally, I feel is more than adequate to cover everything needed. I don't think it is really necessary to have a specific tag for comic books. From my understanding, the purpose of such a tag would be to indicate something was adapted from another source. I'm not sure why then it would make a difference what that source is - simply that it was based on a story existing in another medium.

Far more important to me though is the point that @Napoleon Wilson makes under @Crow T Robot's answer. There is absolutely no way this should be applied to every comic (or book) adaption on the site, as it would immediately become too bloated and unruly.

Currently, we have various director tags on the site. There was a discussion on meta a while back (see here) where I suggested a tag like shouldn't be used for all his films, but only for questions specifically about the director, or his techniques.

Similarly, I feel with the comic-adaption, adaption, or whatever other way this proposed tag is created, that it should only be used for questions specifically about differences in adaptions.

For example, these questions would not warrant such a tag:

These questions would warrant such a tag:

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  • But I don't agree about the Trask question, that doesn't ask about any differences and has the similarity to the comic only as a little side question.
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    Jul 19, 2014 at 9:41
  • @NapoleonWilson: I did wonder about that one. I included it however as it does have a part to the question asking if this is based off source material or an invention of the movie - in which case knowing the source material, i.e. the comic adaption would be helpful. The others are definitely clearer examples of when I would use the tag though.
    – Andrew Martin
    Jul 19, 2014 at 9:42

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