Top Ten Cancelled TV Shows That Should Continue As Comics 2013

This is a topic we’ve covered before, and some of the same ground will be covered because, let’s […]

September 6, 2017, 10:08pm

This is a topic we’ve covered before, and some of the same ground will be covered because, let’s be honest, a lot of this stuff hasn’t changed. But with the Veronica Mars Kickstarter catapulting “brilliant-but-cancelled” TV series back into the foreground, a new season of Arrested Development on the way and X-Files Season Ten coming down the pike from IDW, it seemed as good a time as any to reassess our list of cancelled TV series that should live on in comic book form.Here are some ground rules: We’re going to look at our old list and remove Veronica Mars, Pushing Daisies, The X-Files and Bored to Death, since they’ve all got continuations ready to go, except Pushing Daisies, for which showrunner Bryan Fuller is already exploring either a comic book series or a Kickstarter campaign for more film/TV.Licensed properties have always had sporadic success at best from DC and Marvel, but it can be argued that they haven’t been top sellers in part because they’re not a priority for the companies, marketing-wise. Titles like The Lone Ranger, Ghostbusters and True Blood have not only performed well for smaller publishers, but helped to elevate their company’s profile in the mainstream bookstore market, which may not be watched by comic book fans as closely as direct market sales but which has more potential upside in many ways.Series like Smallville and Buffy the Vampire Slayer have been big success stories in comic books, and The X-Files is on the horizon. But for every one of those, there are botched and aborted adaptations that make readers wonder why they were ever made in the first place…or digital-exclusive comics marketed only to fans of the show, without regard for the comics market (we’re looking at you, Burn Notice). There’s also the questions of whether a canceled show would really even work as a comic (the fast-moving, scene-changing nature of shows like the returning Arrested Development and on-the-bubble Community make imagining how they would keep their tone in another medium a hard thing to do), or whether its fan base would buy into comics as a way to tell the story (I can’t see fans of Men of a Certain Age or Memphis Beat taking in large numbers to their local comic shops).All of that considered, what are the ten shows we’d most like to see revived as comic books? In alphabetical order, since it’s hard to prioritize such a thing…!