Off My Mind: Classic Literature as Comic Books

Intresting

I think it is great that this stuff is done. In fact i wish more would ... Jane Austin books come off as chick stuff but once you really read it, it is so much more.  War and Peace, the Idiot or the deer  
slayer books would make a great comic series. And what a great way to interest people into acctully picking up a novel.

My all time favorite book is Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I was stoked when Marvel announced that they were doing a comic adaptation of the book. They have also since adapted Ender's Shadow, A War of Gifts, and Ender in Exile all in the same universe, and all very faithfully to the books. There have also been a couple of one-shots that are entirely new material not seen before. 
 
I have read most of it. It is interesting seeing this world in a visual format for the first time. (There have been no movies, cartoons, etc. Just cover illustrations at best) Marvel has done an excellent job, but by contrast it is sooo much thinner than the original novel. Even when you break Ender's Game into 10 issues, it still just hits the high points.  Also, the book revolves largely around a system of zero-g battles in a space station. It was really difficult for them to convey the action of these scenes in the comic. It was very detailed and engaging in the novel, and kind of vague in the comic.  
 
All this said, I am very excited about the next book Speaker for the Dead. It takes place much later and has very different themes from the earlier stories. I think it will lend itself to a  visual interpretation more easily. We have different alien species, an alien planet, a sentient computer program, etc.  
 
It depends on the source material. If it is something we have seen multiple times in different formats, then no, I don't think it's necessary. But something I am familiar with, and we have seen little or no interpretation of, I find myself looking forward to it.

it depends on how it's done I suppose...I know a lot of people are liking Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep but for me it's no where near as good as the book and even harder to sit and read...they put every word from the book into that comic and every issue is a really really long read

I think its all fun and good as long as people don't see them as a stand in for the original work.

I generally prefer novels to comics, but if it gets more people interested in classic stories, I'm good. Plus, sometimes the images add something extra to the experience.

I think I've read all of the Marvel literary comics but most of them haven't done that well sales wise, the most popular one wasn't even mentioned though, Wonderful Wizard of Oz, it was pretty successful as far as I saw and showed that there is some demand for it at least enough to produce multiple printings and two follow up minis.
 
I like to think the Wonderful Wizard of Oz did better then the other Marvel literary comics because of the spectacular art of Skottie Young whereas the other Marvel books artwork didn't bring anything new to the table.
 
I've also always seen comics as a good way to teach children that don't like traditional reading materials and having literary ones available makes it that much easier to meld comics and legitimate school work and gets the newer generations into comics :D

I believe reading anything more into it than the need to find additional revenue streams is a massive fail. Sure, they may justify the initial expense by stating that it will attract more readers to comics, however, some would only buy the classics in comic form, and nothing else.

These kinds of things help break the genre barrier and show that comics are a broader medium, the adaptations can assist in the comprehension of more dense works, and the classic subject matter means the comics can make it into the hands of kids barred from strictly entertaining materials (into schools, into homes with restrictive parents, into libraries, etc).  It can also serve as a gateway to classical literature for kids already into comics. 
 
From my own experience, I know that I was always drawn to Digests and Short Fiction, but a set of hybrid prose/sequential-art pages got me into reading the complete works of Dickens... stodgy descriptive storytelling and long dense casts lists with names I could never remember were exchanged for lovingly painted panels filled with detail and characters with distinct looks now made easier to distinguish and keep track of visually.  I know that Don Quixote was unsympathetically crazy to me reading through, but illustrated, you could almost get sucked into his cosplay. 
 
Of course, at the end of the day they're made because they sell well enough to justify their creation.  Rarely are the creators being taken off genre books to produce these, instead they're a freelance creative team (or a salaried creative team that would otherwise be in a holding pattern).  The classics sell and re-sell in their original form to this day and many are public domain meaning no licensing fees yet you get to ride on all the goodwill towards this classical work build up over the decades (if not centuries).  People will buy them big, fat, slim, paper-backed, hard covered, leather bound, spiral bound, pop-up book, pocket-sized, illustrated, annotated, perforated, CD, MP3, large print, and any other way the market demands... so comic form is just another angle.

I think it depends whether or not they're a manga adaptation of Shakespeare. Bishie Hamlet? No. No.

What is better than comics with classic literature? Muppets with classic literature, A Muppet Christmas Carol or Muppet Treasure Island.
 
Though, what could go wrong with muppets?

Of course they can be adapted.... 
it depends on style and how they adapt the original work. 
then it won't be as interesting to read. 
Just Sayin'....

I'd rather read the actual novels

Perhaps it is a way to get people interested in the classics so they can then read the actual novels.  A representation like this may be enough to get people interested in more.  Fairy tales have had comic adaptations and I've seen the Greek classic the Odyssey adapted for comics.  I don't know about the market for them.  I don't see the harm in it. 

They did an Ann Rice run on comic book adaptations in the 90s. The Current Dark Tower Stephen King story is doing VERY well. Along with the Stand. It's there...

some novels, book series, or plays could be turned into comic books and graphic novels

Some of the classics actually adapt very well to comics.
 
The comics/graphic novel medium is a young one relatively speaking - perhaps in some cases the original authors might have considered the graphic novel medium rather than prose fiction, were they writing today.

" Intresting "

These kinds of comics are the only way my father was able to get through his English classes back in the 50s.  I wholly support them.

I like Literature adaptations.  If it is a way to get people to read, then good.  The comic adaptations tends to be closer then the movie versions.

I have yet to actually read it, but I had to have a copy of Classics Illustrated Moby Dick, to go with my Bone collection. :D

sometimes, its hard to understand and picture what the hell is going on by just reading texts. so for me i would love to read some of those so i can actually see what's going 

Adaptions? It should be Adaptations.

I prefer when they just use the basic concept of classic stories to tell their own story. Like taking the story of Achilles and his heel and making it about a modern day super hero. Or Moby Dick be a crime series about a detective trying to get a crime lord. Or just set it in space. Space makes everything cooler.
 
I can't recall what the series was called, but I kind of remember reading a compilation of various classics stories, but telling them set in the Star Wars universe. Maybe I just dreamed it, but it was very entertaining.

Usually the classics aren't so great for comic adaptation... 
 
I did once read a graphic novel version of The Painting of Dorian Gray, simply because I had read the book and wanted to compare. It was fine, but it does make you realize something: 
 
One of the things that distinguish classics, is that so much is about describing surroundings. This is removed in comics (due to the illustrations), and makes the books seem a bit flat.

I'm reading "I Am Legend" in comic form at the moment. It's pretty damn good.

Well how about superheroes moving into literature instead of just comics? What is your guys thoughts on that perspective? I it would probably make superheroes more serious and timeless even more I would not mind that at all. Not crazy about literary classics as comics it depends but I like how fairy tales are  being adapted into comics at least or old mythologies. 

totally am buying that Pride and Prejudice Comic

I'd much rather see "sequels" or some kind of story with just the character rather than the exact same story from before.

you know what would be interesting? 
 
A Few Good Men in  comic form

" Classics Illustrated had many different volumes and they did what Marvel is doing now, but more than 60 years ago. You can still find many of their abridged versions of classic novels in the back issues section of many comic book stores. "

Personally, I enjoyed Bram Stoker's Death Ship, which was put out by IDW not too long ago.  It basically acted as a lost chapter in the book Dracula, detailing the voyage of the Demeter that Harker was on before it ran ashore.  This was something that expanded on the original literature rather than adapting Dracula into a comic book.  Still, it made me remember how much I loved Dracula...so I went back and read it.  Having that little piece about the Demeter in the back of my head was awesome for re-reading Dracula! 
 
I also look at Eric Shanower and Skottie Young's work on Wizard of Oz, Land of Oz, and Ozma of Oz.  It's wonderful stuff, and they adapt the novels in a very similar language.  They don't demean or harm the material, but instead, they bring it back to life to a whole generation that never knew Wizard of Oz was even a book!!! 
 
I'm all for adaptations, so long as they don't take away from the original.  It's actually one of the reasons I DON'T like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  It takes away from what the original was trying to do, and now that we have seen it, we cannot look at Pride and Prejudice in the same light anymore. 
 
Then again, I look at most literature TODAY and I just can't see anything lasting in the same way as many of the old old stories that are out there. 
 
To end this long-winded speech, I will say this:  I'd love to see someone tackle and adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brother Karamazov or William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.

I'd like to see some classic sci-fi comicized. Things such as Brave New World and H.G. Wells titles. I'd read those!

Let's not forget:

Back in the olden days before comics were diluted down into Hero's 24/7 there used to be EVERYTHING. Romance, Cowboys, Singing Cowboys, Funny Animals. Crime, Punishment actual proper horror, parody. Everything. 
 
I don't think there is anything wrong with the Classic's being reintroduced as Comics. When we went to a comic convention, my girlfriend bought a copy of Romeo and Juliet. I got Frankenstein. They were doing all sorts of comics, in three versions. One with complete text, one with diluted down and one with just the jist of it. I think it's a great way of introducing people to things they might not want to read - Like younger kids, or people who're not interested in Super heroes all the time. 
 
My Girlfriend doesn't like super heroes. My friend doesn't like superheroes, but they both read comics because I introduced them to something they wanted to read. No reason not to push comics as far as they can do - They adapt everything else, why not classics?

I think it is cool but would be better if they released them in cheaper digest formats because might be more affordable for kids in school plus make great stocking stuffers.