Marielle Heller’s brilliant 2015 film The Diary of a Teenage Girl should appeal to comics fans not only because it’s based on the hybrid novel/graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner but because it revolves around an aspiring comics artist in 1976 San Francisco. Bel Powley plays 15-year-old Minnie Goetze, a high school girl with one thing on her mind: SEX. Following the wisdom of “seek and ye shall find,” the precocious Minnie winds up having several erotic dalliances with both men and women, most prominently with Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård), the 35-year-old boyfriend of her mother (Kristen Wiig).
Intermixed with this sexual awakening is Minnie’s burgeoning skill as an artist, eventually finding a guiding inspiration in female underground comics star Aline Kominsky-Crumb (Susannah Schulman). Director Heller uses gorgeous animation to bring Minnie’s drawings to life throughout the film, which feels authentic to the period and to the teenage experience.
Inspired by Heller’s film, we decided to dig into the deep vault and find as many of the most interesting depictions of comic book artists in movies, from the 2000s all the way back to the 1950s! Check out The 10 Best Movies About Comic Book Artists in the gallery below!
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Click here to purchase your copy of The Diary of a Teenage Girl, out today on Blu-ray!
10 Best Movies About Comic Book Artists
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American Splendor (2003)
ACTOR: James Urbaniak
The late writer/curmudgeon Harvey Pekar spent decades honing his particular brand of Cleveland-set auto-bio melancholy in the comic series "American Splendor," and the filmmakers deftly captured that spirit by making a narrative/documentary hybrid featuring both Paul Giamatti as Pekar as well as the real deal in interview segments and animations. Underground comics legend Robert Crumb (husband of Diary of a Teenage Girl's Aline Kaminsky) is portrayed by James Urbaniak in a case of pitch-perfect casting.
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Monkeybone (2001)
ACTOR: Brendan Fraser
Whether you consider this an $80 million dollar art movie or an unmitigated comedic disaster, there's no question that Monkeybone is a fascinating trainwreck. Henry Selick took his success with The Nightmare Before Christmas and parlayed it into his first live-action/animated hybrid in which Brendan Fraser plays a hapless cartoonist whose ID-like creation Monkeybone takes over his body while his comatose spirit dwells in a cartoonish limbo called Down Town. Based on the comic series "Dark Town" by Kaja Blackley, this is a project that unfortunately suffered from a poor script, interfering producers and a meddling studio that resulted in a film that is neither fish nor fowl, though it is foul.
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Chasing Amy (1997)
ACTORS: Ben Affleck and Jason Lee
Well-known comic book fan (and comic shop owner) Kevin Smith wrote and directed his personal tribute to the fanboy world in which Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck) and Banky Edwards (Jason Lee) are the creators of indie comic sensation "Bluntman and Chronic." Then the hot title lesbian comes along and spoils the whole thing! Okay, not really, but sort of, and eagle-eyed comics fans will notice the artwork for their comic is done by "Madman" and "iZOMBIE" creator Michael Allred, who also has a cameo during the convention scenes.
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Cool World (1992)
ACTOR: Gabriel Byrne
Acclaimed animator Ralph Bakshi (The Lord of the Rings, Fritz the Cat) attempted a live-action/animation hybrid in this neo noir about a newly-released ex-con/wife-murderer Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne) who gets sucked into the world of his own comic book creation. On his way back into the real world, he brings the animated-turned-flesh+blood Holli Wood (Kim Basinger) along with him, and she wrecks havoc. Bakshi's dark vision got neutered by rewrites and budget cuts, while his original leading man Brad Pitt was demoted to supporting role.
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The Ambulance (1990)
ACTOR: Eric Roberts
You remember that great Marvel Comics character Dr. Strong, who shoots beams out of his head? No? Oh, maybe that's because he only existed in the world of director Larry Cohen's virtually direct-to-VHS thriller, in which a positively strung-out-looking Eric Roberts plays an artist in the mighty Marvel bullpen, and even has a scene with Stan Lee as his editor! This is actually a totally agreeable little B-movie about an ominous abducting ambulance, with some fun scenes for comic book and/or mullet fans.
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Cellar Dweller (1988)
ACTORS: Jeffrey Combs and Debrah Farentino
John Carl Buechler of Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood fame directed this little-seen piece of '80s horror camp from Child's Play screenwriter Don Mancini. It starts with Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator, The Frighteners)--as perhaps the only living comic book artist who draws wearing a suit, tie and labcoat--dying in an altercation with a monster from the "EC"-esque comic he's inking come-to-life. 30 years later, an aspiring cartoonist played by Debrah Farentino ("Eureka") returns to the same house to revive the same comic book and, unwittingly, the monster.
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Gremlins (1984)
ACTOR: Zach Galligan
Although Gremlins 2: The New Batch saw Billy Peltzer (Galligan) working as a corporate designer for Clamp Industries, in the original film his goal was clearly to become a comic book artist/cartoonist. His room is literally littered with comic books procured from a place called "Dr. Fantasy" and he has the drawing table and everything. We even see him showing a sketch to another artist played by Warner Bros. animator Chuck Jones!
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The Hand (1981)
ACTOR: Michael Caine
Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone and Oscar-winning actor Michael Caine teamed up for this silly B-horror movie about a comic book artist who loses his hand in a grisly accident, only for the severed hand itself to start wrecking havoc. The Conan the Barbarian-esque comic-within-the-film, titled "Mandro," is drawn by "Conan the Barbarian" artist Barry-Windsor Smith, which is not a surprise considering Stone wrote the first Conan movie.
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How to Murder Your Wife (1965)
ACTOR: Jack Lemmon
The great Jack Lemmon plays proud bachelor/author of the successful spy comic "Bash Brannigan" who drunkenly marries Italian bombshell Virna Lisi during a party. He has a rude awakening when he realizes just how much his non-English speaking bride is turning his life upside down, and plots to kill her in the pages of his own comic!
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Artists and Models (1955)
ACTORS: Dean Martin and Dorothy Malone
A fictitious comic character known as "Bat Lady" is at the center of this silly Martin & Lewis comedy about that comic's author Abigail 'Abby' Parker (Dorothy Malone) who quits the title after the publisher demands more gore. Enter Dean Martin as a starving artist who seeks to somehow seduce Abby and take her old job at the same time. Meanwhile #1 Bat Lady fan Jerry Lewis unwittingly falls in love with the girl who models her (Shirley MacLaine).
