Newsweek goes gaga for Classics Illustrated this week, as Malcolm Jones looks at the line’s rebirth as well as various other literary adaptations out in stores:
Papercutz has borrowed well to kick off its rejuvenated line, and a sneak peek at its forthcoming “Alice in Wonderland” proves that its freshly commissioned work is no less dazzling. It had better be. Half a century ago, Classics Illustrated competed only with superheroes in spandex, Archie and Jughead and Little Lulu. It ruled its particular niche in more or less lonely solitude. Since the original company shuttered in 1971, comics have become a recognized art form with a full complement of resident geniuses as various as R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman and Mariane Satrapi. The ways to pursue what the late comics genius Will Eisner described as “sequential art” continue to prove limitless. Marvel recently introduced a sleek classics line. There’s also a splendidly inventive series called Graphic Classics that devotes each issue to several stories by an individual author (Arthur Conan Doyle, Ambrose Bierce, Robert Louis Stevenson), with each story illustrated by a different artist—and in its adaptation of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” it cleverly employs two artists: one to illustrate the criminal career of Hyde, the other to illuminate the confession of Dr. Jekyll. There’s even a set of Shakespeare’s plays rendered in the style of Japanese manga comics —but hark!—with Shakespeare’s dialogue intact.
You can’t go wrong with any of these series. But the old question posed by strict teachers and worried parents still hangs in the air: shouldn’t you be reading the originals and not wasting your time on what used to be called “funny books”? For anyone who grew up reading the illustrated Melville and Hugo—that would be me—the answer is, maybe not. After all, one of the hardest parts of growing up was discovering that great fiction did not necessarily come with illustrations.
March 27th, 2008 at 10:19 am
That Jekyll and Hyde sounds mega cool. I’ll be buying that. Which Manga Shakespeare is unabridged? All I’ve seen are. Doesn’t all great fiction come in graphic format now? :-))))
March 27th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
The Manga Shakespeare books from Wiley are adapted - all the dialogue is straight from the original text, but not ALL of it. However, Classical Comics from Great Britain is publishing unabridged Shakespeare - and in three versions for each title: original text, plain text (modern English), and quick text (easier vocabulary for struggling readers).