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Thread: What do you guys think about novels that get adapted into graphic novels?

  1. #16
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    Oh yeah, graphic novel adaptations are definitely good way to make some cash. That's probably why so many of them are less than stellar. They have several things going for them from the POV of publishers:
    1 ready-made story -- no need to pay for a writer
    2 royalty free -- the overwhelming majority of these books made into graphic novels are "classics" and in the public domain now.
    3 already recognizable -- there's really no need, nor point in advertising Austen or Dickens now is there?

    That being said, I am a bit of a fan of these kinds of things and when done right they can really sparkle. Peter Kuper's adaptation of Kafka's The Metamorphosis is a perfect example of a graphic novel that compliments and even adds something to the original.

    On a more mundane level, I find GN adaptations to be a great way to experience certain books -- especially some of those old, terribly long winded ones -- that I would probably never read others. The Mysteries of Udolpho, for example.

  2. #17
    Registered User Babak Movahed's Avatar
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    The only one that I looked into was an adaptation of "Picture of Dorian Grey" and I personally wasn't a fan but a graphic novel of 1984 sounds pretty cool.

  3. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by spookymulder93 View Post
    I was previewing the graphic novel version of Stephen Kings The Stand and it's awesome. They stayed true to the original and it seems like all it does is cut out the descriptions of the scenery because you have the artwork.

    I think Brave New World, 1984, and F451 would make great graphic novels.

    This is a good idea but there is one disadvantage: When we read a book, we imagine the setting and environment in our own way, but when graphic novels are adapted from that novel there will be drawings and sketches and appearences of people in the way the artist of the graphic novel imagined, so we'll be obliged to take them into our mind. This can sometimes be disapointing because we might not like the way the sketches were made when compared to the imagination we had in our minds when we read the novel. I experienced such a thing with 'The Alchemist' graphic novel.

  4. #19
    Eiseabhal
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    Graphic novels are very good for the young inexperienced reader. I'm afraid though that nowadays there seems to be a decline in the artistic standards from the detailed realism that I remember in comic books as a child. I remember reading hardback versions with detailed drawings of Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe and a fantastically gory version in colour of King Solomon's Mines. I also remember being introduced to some of the most famous texts via the World's Classics which were pretty good. Too much of the art now is from the extreme fantasy of the Marvel comics school. Perhaps it's just a phase. I sometimes see my grandchildren with them.

  5. #20
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    I wish these World's Classics would be reissued for the present generation of young readers. They were excellent.

  6. #21
    Registered User ralfyman's Avatar
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    Has been going on for many decades via Classics Illustrated, etc. Probably fine for young children and as part of learning English as a foreign language.

  7. #22
    King of Dreams MorpheusSandman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OrphanPip View Post
    I'm not too fond of them, and I'm fond of graphic novels. They tend to contain rather uninspired art, there's nothing really added to the work by putting it into comic form. They seem to just reduce these books merely to the content of their dialogue, and little attention is given to how framing and art can be used to add depth to the work.

    One of the major problems I have with them is that what makes graphic novels interesting for me is the way the art is used to tell the story, apart from merely being pictures with dialogue bubbles. Much of Maus could never work as a traditional novel. Likewise, Bechdel's Fun Home, with drawings done over actual photos of her father, creates a certain effect that can't be done with a text autobiography.

    If they're not going to use the medium of the graphic novel to its fullest, then they're just dumbing down novels.
    Quote Originally Posted by stlukesguild View Post
    It depends upon the artist(s) involved and the end result. I see no inherent reason why any book should not or could not be successfully translated into the graphic novel format any more than they might be transformed successfully into a film or an opera. The end result, however, is something new... a unique art form in and of itself... and not a replacement for the original book any more than Kubrick's Lolita... good as it is... is a replacement for Nabokov's novel, or Verdi's Otello is a replacement for Shakspeare's Othello.
    +1 to these posts.
    "As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being." --Carl Gustav Jung

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