The Ring

Today's Comic Books you never Knew Existed entry is 'The Ring'

As we all know, The Ring is the horror film that included the shock ending scene of, "She came out of the fucking tv!" But what some do not realize is The Ring was a film based on a Japanese film that was based on a Japanese novel. Now, I know some of you are wondering what do novels have to do with comic books? In most cases, nothing! However in this case, a Japanese novel is... a comic book!

They're called Manga. (my girlfriend, Erin or my friend, Brandon can chime in at any given time, being the anime/ manga fans they are!) The Japanese have using the comic book medium for years! They use it for everything! Now we won't get into the fact that a Manga is read backwards by our standards of reading adn writing. No, that's a discussion for another time.

Written by Koji Suzuki and having spawned a few sequels and even a prequel, The Ring was chosen to be one of the first to hail into the Western World via the Silver Screen!

So now that we know The Ring is a quasi comic book based film. There are many key differences between the Ring book, by Koji Suzuki, and the Ring film, directed by Hideo Nakata and written by Hiroshi Takahashi. Most notably, Asakawa in the novel is a man named Kazuyuki, while in the film, Asakawa is a woman named Reiko (whose name may have been a nod to Kaoru Futami's girlfriend in Loop). Kazuyuki has a wife and daughter; Reiko is divorced (from Ryuji), and she has a son named Yoichi. What are some of the differences? Well here, let me show you...

Ryuji from the book was a snarky wiseguy who enjoyed black humour, and even claimed to have raped three girls. Ryuji from the film was a stoical, somber grouch, and there was never anything in the movie about rape.
In the book, when someone who had watched the cursed tape reached day 7 (without having copied the tape and showed it to someone else), they die from a myocardial infarction (a heart attack) when a tumor develops in their throat. At the time of death, they will experience intense anxiety, and should they glance into a reflective surface, they'll hallucinate themselves as hideously deformed and aged. The cursed tape in the book is a psychically engineered instrument that transmits a virus (the Ring Virus) to those that watch it.
In the film, Sadako emerges from the television to claim her victims. She apparently 'scares' them to death, or they die from exposure to her otherworldly shade. Obviously, the film takes a supernatural ghost-story approach, while the book works on a pseudo-science-fictitious medical-mystery approach.
The character of Okazaki does not exist in the book.
Sadako's powers and abilities differ between book and film. In the book, Sadako did possess nensha (psychic photography), and it was hinted that she had prenatural senses, clairvoyance, and mind control abilities. This is nothing compared to the Sadako in the films, who is tremendously powerful beyond all limits. Aside from nensha and clairvoyance, the Sadako from the movies possesses ultra-psychokinetic powers, teleportation, remote vision and travel, regenerative powers, healing abilities (used by the Good Sadako only; see the article on Ring 0 for more info), and even the ability to cheat death, in a way. Incidentally, Sadako from the books cannot kill people by simply willing it like film-Sadako can. Book-Sadako can evidently manipulate the Ring Virus at will, and psychically infect anyone she chooses.
The true villain of the books is not Sadako herself, it is the Ring Virus, which was created when Sadako's dying will and psychic powers were fused with the smallpox virus. The smallpox virus mutated into a conscious virus capable of spreading via psychic means. In the film, it is Sadako's vengeful shade that is wreaking havoc.
The cursed videotape remains a constant fixture in the Ring film franchise, while in the books, the curse evolves into other formats: from the tape, to the Ring Report, to the Sadako clones, to the Ring novel published by Asakawa's brother, and ends with the Metastatic Human Cancer Virus.
Ryuji did not have a hint of ESP intuition in the book, and neither he nor Asakawa had their intuitions 'awakened' from watching the tape like in the movie.
Ryuji's genius and cognitive talents were never really emphasized in the film.
The cursed tape in the novel is far different from the one in the movie. The book-version was much longer and more complicated. Also, the tape in the book has a message at the beginning and the end. The message at the beginning is something along the lines of, "Watch until the end, you will be eaten by the lost...", of which Asakawa thinks to mean, "Watch until the end, or you will be eaten by the lost...". He was probably wrong. The message at the end: "Those that have viewed this tape are fated to die at this exact time seven days from now. In order to survive, you must...", the rest of the end message is taped over, and it isn't until the end that Asakawa realized that the rest of the message was about copying the tape and showing it to someone else. These messages were not in the tape in the movie.
In the film the characters are saved from the curse if they create a copy of the tape and show it to someone else, while in the book they have to help the Ring-virus/Sadako mutate into a new form.
In the film, it is Sadako's father, Heihachiro, that kills Sadako by braining her with a machete and pushing her in the well (though it is later revealed that Sadako didn't die right away, and was actually alive for about 33 years in the well, dying only a year before the events of the first film). In the book, Sadako is assaulted and raped by a doctor working at the facility her father is being treated at (for tuburculosis), who then tosses her into the infamous well. In the book she starved to death in the well full with hatred.
Sadako is in fact a hermaphrodite in the book. She has Testicular Feminization Syndrome, meaning she is anatomically male and has a pair of testes beneath her vagina (she evidently does NOT possess a penis). No mention of TFS is made in any of the films, and presumably she is fully female.
Sadako in the book also had a younger brother that died during infancy.
In the book, an incident is mentioned where Shizuko (Sadako's mother) recovers a statue of En no Ozunu (an ancient ascetic rumoured to possess supernatural power) that had been tossed into the sea during the American occupation period. After she recovers the statue, her psychic powers are awakened. Incidentally, it is rumoured that En no Ozunu might be Sadako's actual father. Furthermore, in the films, it is hinted that Heihachiro might not be Sadako's true father, but that her real father was something inhuman. One scene in Ring 0 subliminally suggests that Sadako's father is the sea (or something from it).

And yes... she so does come out of the television in the comic just as she does in the film!