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A LONGTIME INSPIRATION for blockbuster Holly- wood movies, comic book characters rarely made suc- cessful transitions to the small screen—until recently. With nearly a dozen superhero shows now available to viewers, pilot directors have set a bold tone for this new generation of stories. Challenged to translate 20th Century comic book properties for modern television audiences, four shrewd directors put their own spin on graphic-novel source material to reach beyond the confines of traditional "fanboy" demographics. G otha m's Stea mpu nk Dystopia BY HUGH HART IN THE PILOT EPISODE he directed for Fox hit Gotham, Danny Cannon took pains to create a brooding urban atmo- sphere for the Batman ori- gin story about young Bruce Wa y n e ( D a v i d M a z o u z ) . "Directing Gotham was not about finding a contempo- rary city but creating a Dick- ensian world that was lost in time," Cannon explains. "Our cars are seventies, a lot of our music is eighties, our wardrobe is forties and fif- ties, some of the architecture is turn of the century." Film- ing on location in New York, BOLD STROKES DIRECTORS BRING COMIC BOOK HEROES TO VIVID LIFE FOR TELEVISION 58 DGA QUARTERLY