viz. - graphic novels

Charles Dickens, Graphic Novelist: Adapting Great Expectations

Jake Ptacek — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Original cover art for Illustrated Classics Acclaim Edition by Chuck Wojtkiewicz

Quick—how do you sell kids on a hundred-and-fifty-year old novel that’s about (among other things) a middle-aged man’s pained reflections on class identity and snobbery, confrontational gender politics, and criminal law reform? If you answered, “Why, turn it into a comic book, of course,” congratulations—you may go to the head of the class. Great Expectations seems the most unlikely of Dickens’s novels to create in comic book form—in fact, it’s one of only two novels Dickens did not commission illustrations for, suggesting that even the Inimitable was skeptical of its visual appeal (Hard Times is the other). Yet comic book versions of the text have flourished since the 1940’s. To join in the early celebrations of Charles Dickens’s bicentennial (and in honor of yet another film adaptation), this week I’d like to discuss some images in the book’s transformation from adult novel to children’s text.

Full disclosure: I’m a would-be Dickens scholar, as well as a long-term Dickens fan, but the inherent popularity of Great Expectations continues to surprise me—it was once again voted readers’ favorite over at The Guardian. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that the novel isn’t fantastic, and despite my theoretical summary above, full of action, what with all the convicts, evil doubles, cracked old women, sinister lawyers, and femme fatales stuffed into the plot. But it’s also a mellow slice of late Dickens, and Pip’s outrage and embarrassment over his youthful behavior is a hard sell for most teens forced to read it in school (what fourteen-year-old cares about their priggishness?). The nightmarishly carnivalesque street-life of Oliver Twist or the turns of luminescent comedy and tear-jerking melodrama in David Copperfield I find (and found) far more congenial avenues into Dickens’s work.

Of course I say that, but Great Expectations was the first Dickens novel I read, probably around six or seven, in the edition below:

Image: mycomicshop.com

The low-rent gnarliness of that cover has stayed with me a long time. It’s a splendid gothic scene that’s reminiscent of those great EC Comics covers from the 1950’s with the lurid greens and blues against the mouldering gray of the cemetery. The lifeless colors of the outside world focus the attention on terrified child and his attacker. The suggestion of sexualized violence is a bit weird considering the target audience of these books was boys from 8-13, though there are traces of sexual violence all over the story. (I wonder if Peter Carey, whose version of the novel, Jack Maggs, makes good but explicit use of male-male sexual practices, ever stumbled upon this cover?) All the same, the cover certainly piqued my juvenile interest and provided my first taste of one of the great, if not the greatest, novelists of all time.

Image: comicbitsonline.com

Image: robot6.comicbookresources.com

This first encounter between Magwitch and Pip has proven to be a durable entry point for illustrators of the novel (in whatever version). It makes perfect sense, as it entices younger readers to find out what’s going on in the text without alienating older audiences. Above, both the British Classical Comics graphic novel and the Penguin Deluxe Edition have chosen to feature it. I quite like the way that the Penguin, in otherwise a quite nice reprint of the full novel, emphasizes the comic-strip nature of the scene through paneling and word bubbles; something that the other versions—most of them actual comic books—don’t do. There are ironies to market production….

Image: mycomicshop.com

The original 1945 Classics Illustrated cover, featured above, provides probably the most strongly gendered cover I’ve seen, as two ragged-but-manly men struggle in the mud, a far cry from the desperate starving Magwitch and Compeyson of the text. I do like how the margins of the cover are also enticingly filled with potentially violent figures: on the right, a somewhat crazy-eyed soldier with gun in hand; on the left, gentle Joe swings his blacksmith’s hammer with a bit of bloodlust on his face. What right-thinking boy—be he British or American—could resist such strong appeals to his masculinity?

Image: classicscentral.com

I’d like to conclude, though, by looking at two less-gendered but perhaps more strange images. Above is the Greek cover for the Classics Illustrated edition, which features an obviously post-inheritance Pip (notice the classy bow tie) whispering conspiratorially into Miss Havisham’s ear. Without dramatizing a specific scene in the novel (at least not one I can identify at the moment—any thoughts, fellow Dickensians?) this strange image manages to nail the gothic circulation of secrets in the novel. There’s a cumulative and weird power to it, with its literalization of wealth in the form of treasure and the sinister looks on the faces of Miss Havisham and Pip. By making Pip, even unintentionally, look like a villain, this image captures in a seemingly offhand way the complex narratorial work of the novel in which Pip is one of the villains of the text: the polite country boy turned decadent prig.

Finally, the haunting image this post leads with captures the gothic strands of the text. Miss Havisham’s face is distorted mask, as much animal rage as human skull. Estella’s central positioning as the object of Pip’s gaze, as well as our own, duplicates her role in the text. Her look of disdain and barely-controlled anger quickly reveals the nature of this love triangle (and the obvious pleasure the artist has taken in making her look so beautiful and nasty—probably unintentionally—replicates the real misogyny in the text). Behind everyone looms the shadow of Magwitch, whose life is intricately bound together with all these characters, though we don’t know it. But what I like best is the depiction of Pip, a faceless screen for the reader. After all, he is a sort of everyboy, and this image encourages to identify with him and to become him, just as the text of the novel also encourages that identification. Brilliantly reflecting the depths of the novel as well as its surface, this image suggests that, after all, Great Expectations’ surprising visual popularity is warranted.

Will R. Crumb Fail to Offend?

noelradley — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:52:22 +0000

Image Credit: R. Crumb

H/T USA Today

I got my copy of The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb in the mail and have loved reading it so far. It's richly detailed. It's emotive. It's revelatory. But I’m wondering: Will Crumb’s newest work will be controversial as expected? The word-for-word text of Genesis is accompanied by Crumb's comic art. And as the cover advertises, the images leave nothing out. Adam and Eve begin the work with robust nakedness, as you might think. Perhaps less expected are images of the sexual act laced through a great part of the narrative. Crumb draws Adam and Eve playfully tumbling, Jacob’s multiple wives and concubines, Onan’s coitus interruptus with his brother’s wife (awkward!), and Tamar’s seduction of her father-in-law, Judah, as well as many others. Even if you have read the original text, seeing the sexual act illustrated (naked couple in missionary position) does alter your sense of Genesis. You also get a more vivid picture of disturbing scenes such as Lot offering his daughters to be raped in lieu of his male guests, which is previewed here on the LA Times. I believe Crumb’s illustrations utterly transform the reading; Crumbs brings to light how (deviant, troubling) sexual drives shaped the mythological archetypes and changed the literal history of the Jewish people. Still, I'm wondering how likely it is that Crumb will be deemed a blasphemer. Young evangelical children might not get this picture book in their stocking for Christmas, but I personally don’t anticipate an uprising.

Image Credit: R. Crumb

H/T Texas Performing Arts

At Friday night's talk and other events, Crumb has said he expects controversy, and my assumption is that he would expect this protest from the Christian right, the Jewish community, perhaps even orthodox Catholics. One recalls the Christian outrage at the movie The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation was an illustration of New Testament characters. However, Scorsese was not illustrating the Bible but a work of fiction by Nikos Kazantzakis, where Kazantzakis deviated from the canonical Gospel narratives with a sexually tempted Christ, who considers rejecting his role in salvation. Yet, Crumb has 'faithfully' depicted the text of Gensis. And I think his defense that he has drawn the work literally will hold up.

Another buffer to absorb the controversy, I think, is the literacy of the contemporary Bible reader, especially Protestant evangelical and Jewish readers. Although the sexuality of Genesis is shocking to many, devout Protestants, for example, read the older parts of the Bible more exhaustively and are familiar with the intrigues of the Genesis characters. And although they might de-emphasize the non-monogamous, at times incestuous, sexuality of Genesis, Protestants won’t find the wives of Jacob to be news. On the other hand, as pre-Vatican II Catholic and a self-proclaimed non-religious person, Crumb was perhaps relatively less familiar with the content. Since the sexual history is already accounted for, Crumb's emphasis won't offend the base of potential protesters. In fact, this article from USA today with interviews of Rabbi Simcha Weinstein and Jesuit priest Rev. James Martin indicates that at least some Catholic and Jewish scholars think the book is a positive step, introducing the first book of the Old Testament to a new generation of readers. The reviews by secular readers (see Texas Performing Arts for a listing) have similarly been favorable.

Image Credit: R. Crumb

H/T Austin-American Statesman

My guess is that if there is anything controversial, it won't be the Genesis book in isolation, but the book within the context of Crumb’s lifetime of works. Some protesters of Crumb's promotional tour have drawn attention to his past depictions of sexual deviancy--including portrayals of rape, incest, and pedophilia. These artist pursuits make Crumb an unlikely translator and definitely imbue the biblical images of copulation with an unholy glow. My guess is that if controversy arises, it won’t be about what was drawn, but who was drawing it. Just a note: my favorite parts of the book are the tree of knowledge, a gorgeously cross-hatched, gloriously-branching affair, and Crumb’s characteristic ‘big-foot’ depictions of the female body.

I'll write later on Crumb’s and Spiegelman’s talk Friday night on The University of Texas campus, regarding censorship, whether anything should not be drawn, and the counter-valent satire of underground comic imagery. For now, please respond if you have heard any rumblings on the controversy front...

9/11 Report -- Graphic Novel vs. Authorized Edition

Nate Kreuter — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 23:39:25 +0000

Students in my Rhetoric of Spying Class recently read sections of the 9/11 Commission Report, along with the graphic novel version of the report (for a thorough discussion of the graphic novel version and its critics, including some great links, click here).

Reactions to the graphic novel were mixed, and more students were critical of the graphic novel version than I expected. I was also surprised by why many of the students were critical of the graphic novel. Rather than argue that it was irreverent towards the events of 9/11, many argued that the graphic novel obscured too many of the Authorized Edition's more detailed points. I'm not sure whether the students really thought this or were telling me what they thought I wanted to hear. (I personally can see a lot of advantages in the graphic novel version, such as audience accessibility, which my students also pointed out.)

At any rate, I think that comparisons of related written and visual texts can be very productive in the rhetoric/comp classroom. If you are an instructor or teacher with a story about an a similarly comparative exercise you'd like to share, we'd love to hear about it in the comments section.

Slate serializes ‘Ronald Regan: A Graphic Biography’

John Jones — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:02:02 +0000

If you are teaching comics at all this semester, you might be interested in Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography by Andrew Helfer, Steve Buccellato, and Joe Staton. Slate is serializing the entire text this week. Slate also serialized The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation (it’s no longer available) this time last year.