“30 Days,” “Persepolis” prove comics’ depth, breadth`

Fall is often the slow season for comicbook movies, being a time when most studios are rolling out their Oscar bait or tempt audiences with fare based on more prestigious books.

But two comics adaptations that in almost every way couldn’t be more different offer some of the most compelling proof to date that comics’ ability to generate diverse and compelling material is increasingly valuable to filmmakers and succeeding in expanding such adaptations beyond the finite number of superhero franchises.

Opening today, “30 Days of Night” actually began its life as a film pitch by writer Steve Niles that was rejected by everyone around town who read it — until he turned it into a comic for IDW in 2002 and it was an instant sellout. The comic’s influence has been profound, establishing the names of Niles, artist Ben Templesmith and IDW within the industry and with fans. That Niles was involved in adapting his own work to the screen, as well as the hiring director David Slade, who brings some good indie cred from his previous film, “Hard Candy,” the success of another comicbook franchise seemed assured from Day 1. The film even retained the logo design used for the original trade paperback release of the series.

But the film version is, surprisingly, not as vigorous a tale as the comic. The plot remains essentially the same, retaining the very cool original ending. The changes were relatively minor, with the film estranging Sheriff Eben Oleson (changed from Olemaun) from his wife, Stella, and changing the character from a native Inuit to suit Josh Hartnett. There also were elements of the vampires plotting their scheme in/from New Orleans that are omitted.

All of this is minor stuff, but where the film falls short is in the details of the execution and especially the look of the film. Templesmith’s painted art gave the comic version a hazy, dreamlike quality with the occasion bright streaks of color (mostly red) and a chilling look for the vampires that included extra teeth, beedy eyes set just a bit too far apart and white skin stained red around the mouth. The film does its best to emulate some of Templesmith’s style, especially in the digital color correction, but always feels limited by a budget that makes it hard to imagine the actors are anywhere but on a decidedly not-freezing sound stage somewhere.

None of this is likely to matter much to filmgoers, most of whom will not have read the book in advance but enough of whom likely will be tempted to do so afterward to make IDW happy. Even critics, whose routine evisceration of horror flicks has increasingly lead studios to not screen them in advance, have been relatively kind to “30 Days.” Its box office and long-term potential also should make this work for Columbia Pictures in the financial realm, even if its creative reputation doesn’t ride out the long haul.

That makes “Persepolis” almost a mirror version of “30 Days of Night.” The film has been a hit with critics, festival programmers and audiences in its country of origin, France. But as a black-and-white, hand-animated tale about the life of Iranian cartoonist Marjane Satrapi, has little chance of making much of a dent in America except as an Oscar contender. Expect “Persepolis” to get a lot of attention from industry insiders and awards watchers because France submitted it as its entry in the foreign-language category, where it’s likely to stand a better chance of being recognized than in the CG-toon dominated animated feature category.

Regardless of whether the film takes an Oscar, it’s a real creative triumph that has used the success of the comic to get made a film that’s unusual in many respects: it’s hand-animated, almost completely in black-and-white and co-directed by the woman who also created the comic. It also is sure to provoke debate (or at least some shouting on cable news) about its portrayal of real Iranians and how they live their lives under an oppressive political and religious regime.

It will be worth watching to see how the film does when it opens Dec. 25 in the United States with an English dub to see if the success the graphic novel found in bookstores with regular, book-reading adults can in any way carry over to the film. Even if it makes a little bit of a difference, it may be enough for people to try making films of more literary graphic novels.

Which is a real shame, because the film is extremely faithful to the details and the spirit of the graphic novel while also being an imaginative work of animation that will surely find a significant following.

As different as these pics and their circumstances are, both prove the increasingly diverse and challenging material that comics bring to the table — especially as inventive original films that can appeal to the masses become increasingly rare.