Back in 2004, Morgan Spurlock went on a mission. For 30 days, he decided to eat and drink nothing but food bought from McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the process, Morgan’s arteries clogged, his health deteriorated, and his energy was completely sapped. The whole journey was captured in the documentary, Super Size Me. The film went on to win the Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize and a nomination for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards; it also led to a television series on FX called 30 Days. Now, seven years after its release, Dark Horse is putting out a graphic novel based on the film, aptly named Supersized.
The graphic novel chooses to use a fat Ronald McDonald as a narrator and framing device for the story of Morgan’s attempt. In regards to the original movie, the story appears to be pretty faithful even with the narration. Morgan explains that he did not just go into this whole thing half-cocked; he consulted with doctors on his health and well being beforehand to ensure that all was well. After day two, Morgan is already beginning to burst. Here, we witness the vomit that followed this initial setback in a fully rendered artistic interpretation. While it’s not pretty to watch in the movie, I must say the art is quite captivating in the graphic novel. A multitude of artists trade off throughout the book, including Tony Millionaire, Lukas Ketner, and Ron Chan.
Of course, there are some changes that have to be made from one medium to another. This time, all references to McDonald’s have been replaced with McDopey’s, as (unsurprisingly) McDonald’s was unwilling to license its trademark to this adaptaion. As is apparent from the preview, the flow of the graphic novel will be going through days a lot faster than the documentary did to fit the full story within 88 pages of content.
While this is the documentary that got me to stop eating fast food except during long bus or car rides, I’m still not sure how willing I will be to see this all unfold again on the page. Considering how long it has been between the film and this adaptation, there might even be a few people who pick this up who have completely forgotten Super Size Me ever existed. Maybe that will be good for Netflix rentals? I’m personally happy it’s been a few years so I can scrub the image of those fossilized fries out of my head. If you would like to make the decision to buy or not buy for yourselves, Supersized is now available at your favorite comic retailer.
(via Splash Page)
Tags: Dark Horse Comics, fast food, Lukas Ketner, McDonald's, Morgan Spurlock, Ron Chan, Super Size Me, Supersized, Tony Millionaire