Comics and Graphic Novels drew the attention of the December 2022 meeting. In comics and graphic novels, writers and illustrators come together not only to tell as story, but to show a story. The books and magazines shown span an array of categories including autobiography, political commentary, satire, human interest, fantasy, fairytale, and scripture.
One collector shared a group of comic book form adaptations
of classic novels and short stories. While
acquiring the true hardcover first editions of these classic works, mainly
published in the 19th century, the collector also found comic book versions of
the same titles. Most of these
adaptations are from the Classics Illustrated series originally
published from 1941 through 1971. Other
comic book publishers such as Dell and Marvel Comics also produced comic book
adaptations of classic literature.
These adaptations lead off this month's selection of comic
books and graphic novels.
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| Herman Melville and Mark Twain adaptations |
Melville, Herman. Moby
Dick. Classics Illustrated, Number
5. New York: Gilberton Company, 1942. Adapted by Louis Zansky. Illustrated by Louis Sansky and Harvey
Kurtzman. Moby-Dick was first
published by Melville in 1851.
Clemens, Samuel L.
Huckleberry Finn. Classics
Illustrated, Number 19. New York:
Gilberton Company, 1944. Adapted by
Evelyn Goodman. Illustrated by Louis
Zansky. Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn was first published by Mark Twain in 1885.
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| Jules Verne adaptations |
Verne, Jules. From
the Earth to the Moon. Classics
Illustrated, Number 105. New York:
Gilberton Company, 1953. Illustrated
by Alex Blum. The first American edition
of From the Earth to the Moon was published in 1874.
Verne, Jules. Off
on a Comet. Classics Illustrated,
Number 149. New York: Gilberton Company,
1959. Illustrated by Gerald
McCann. Hector Servadac (original
title) was first published in French in 1877.
Verne, Jules. A
Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Classics Illustrated, Number 138.
New Yok: Gilberton Company, 1957.
Illustrated by Norman Nodel. The
first English edition of A Journey to the Center of the Earth was
published in 1872.
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| H. G. Wells adaptations |
Wells, H. G. The First Men in the Moon. Classics Illustrated, Number 144. New York: Gilberton Company, 1958. Illustrated by George Woodbridge, Al Williamson, Angelo Torres, and Roy Krenkel. The First Men in the Moon was first published by Wells in 1901.
Wells, H. G. The
Time Machine. Classics Illustrated,
Number 133. New York: Gilberton Company,
1956. Adapted by Lorenz Graham. Illustrated by Lou Cameron. The Time Machine was first published
by Wells in 1895.
Wells, H. G. The
War of the Worlds. Classics
Illustrated, Number 124. New York:
Gilberton Company, 1955. Adapted by
Harry G. Miller. Illustrated by Lou
Cameron. The War of the Worlds
was first published by Wells in 1898.
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| Edgar Allan Poe adaptations |
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Raven. New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1963. "The Raven" was first published in American Review in February 1845 under the pseudonym "Quarles" and made its first appearance in book form in Poe's Tales in June 1845.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The
Gold Bug and Other Stories. Classics
Illustrated, Number 84. New York:
Gilberton Company, 1951. Illustrated
by Alex Blum. "The Gold Bug"
first appeared in book form in Poe's Tales in 1845.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The
Pit and the Pendulum and Other Suspense Stories. New York: Marvel Classics Comics, 1977. "The Pit and the Pendulum" first
appeared in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present in 1843.
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| Canyon Kiddies |
Swinnerton, James. "Kiddies of the Canyon Country." Good Housekeeping. Various issues, 1924. A sampling of eight leaves of Swinnerton's Canyon Kiddies series extracted from the magazine, each dated 1924. "Kiddies of the Canyon Country" appeared regularly in Good Housekeeping from 1922 to 1941. The comics depicted Native Americans in the Arizona desert in everyday family life, work, and play, with a focus on the children.
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| Canyon Kiddies |
Swinnerton (1875 – 1974) was an American cartoonist and landscape painter. He mostly painted scenes in the Desert Southwest. As a cartoonist, he was influential in the development of 19th Century comic strips due to his emphasis on narrative continuity among the panes.
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| Southern Cross |
Hyde, Laurence. Southern Cross: A Novel of the South Seas. Montreal, Quebec: Drawn & Quarterly, 2007. Hardcover, 256 pages. First published in 1951, Southern Cross: A Novel of the South Seas is a wordless graphic novel told in 118 wood engravings about the atomic bomb testing performed by the United States in the South Pacific following World War II. Laurence Hyde was infuriated with the continued testing in the Bikini Atoll. His 1951 graphic novel tells the story of a Polynesian island and its inhabitants who were leading an idyllic life that is lost after American sailors arrive and evacuate the islanders from their homes. During the evacuation, a fisherman kills a sailor who attempts to rape his wife. The couple flees with their child into the jungle to avoid capture. After the other islanders have evacuated, the Americans detonate an atom bomb on the ocean floor. The island receives the brunt of the bomb's destructive force, which annihilates all flora and fauna. The fisherman and his family are subjected to horrific suffering and pain before dying from the resulting blast and radiation.
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| Southern Cross illustrations |
This edition of Southern Cross includes the original introduction by Rockwell Kent and two essays by Hyde in which he provides a description of the process of wood engraving, and a brief history of the woodcut novel.
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| Blondie |
Young, Chic. Blondie. Number 196 (March). Derby, CT: Charlton Comics, 1972. Chic Young was an American cartoonist who originally wrote the comic strip Dumb Dora. He quit writing Dumb Dora in 1930 to begin a new strip, Blondie, which premiered the same year. Interestingly, cartoonist Paul Fung, Sr. took over Dumb Dora following Young's departure, and his son, Paul Fung, Jr., later became Blondie's cartoonist. This issue of Blondie shows Fung's illustrator signature on the cover and was published a year before Young died.
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| Blondie |
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| Watchmen |
Moore, Alan and David Gibbons. Watchmen. Burbank, CA: DC Comics, 2011. Absolute (Deluxe) edition, December 2011. Hardcover, 464 pages in slipcase. First published in 1987, Watchmen was created by the British DC Comics team of Alan Moore (writer) and Dave Gibbons (illustrator). The story deconstructs and satirizes the longstanding popular representations of superheroes such as Superman and Batman. Its central murder mystery provides the hook for a story that examines Cold War anxieties and asks profound questions about hero worship. The story revolves around the very human moral struggles of its team of superhero protagonists and asks how such heroes would function in a normal world. It is an alternate history where superheroes began emerging in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. Their appearance led to some major changes to the timeline such as the United States winning the Vietnam War. However, in the mid-1980s the U.S. finds itself on the brink of World War III with the Soviet Union. One of the superheroes, Dr. Manhattan, has the power to stop the Soviet threat but it is illegal for superheroes to use their powers because a fearful, distrusting government has outlawed them. The novel explores the question, Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? (Who watches the watchmen?)
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| Watchmen |
Watchmen was recognized in Time Magazine’s List of the 100 Best Novels published since 1923. In a review for the BBC, Nicholas Barber said, “every panel on every page feels expertly crafted and composed. The publication of Watchmen was the moment comic books grew up.” Watchmen won the Eisner Award, the Kirby Award, and a Hugo Award for best graphic novel. Watchmen was released as a major blockbuster film in 2009.
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| You're Smokin' Now, Mr. Butts! |
Trudeau, G. B. You're Smokin' Now, Mr. Butts!: A Doonesbury Book. Kansas City, MO: Andrews and McMeel, 1990. Garry Trudeau began publishing his Doonesbury comic strip in 1970. In 1975 it became the first daily comic strip to win the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. Like the daily comic strip, You're Smokin' Now, Mr. Butts! continues Trudeau's use of political satire, taking aim at contemporary issues such as Tienanmen Square, the invasion of Panama, and the Bush administration. This copy is signed on the half title page by Trudeau.
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| Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home |
Whedon, Joss and Georges Jeanty. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Books, 2007. Whedon's television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer ran for seven seasons from 1997 to 2003, following the 1992 film of the same name.
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| Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home |
Before the show was cancelled, Whedon had already drafted the storyline for an eighth season. Wanting to tell the story, he found a new medium for The Long Way Home in a comic book format. The Long Way Home is the first of several comic books by Dark Horse Books to continue the Buffy saga.
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| The Book of Genesis Illustrated |
Crumb, R. The Book of Genesis Illustrated. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. First edition. Unlike previous comic book adaptations of the Bible, which heavily truncate the text, Crumb faithfully renders the text of the Book of Genesis in its entirety. He draws heavily from Robert Alter's Genesis: Translation and Commentary (1996) and The Five Books of Moses (2004) in addition to the King James Version for the text of his illustrated Genesis. Crumb disclaims in his introduction, "In a few places I have ventured to do a little interpretation of my own, if I thought the words could be made clearer, but I refrained from indulging too often in such 'creativity,' and sometimes let it stand in its convoluted vagueness rather than monkey around with such a venerable text."
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| The Book of Genesis Illustrated |
Crumb sought to create a "visual, literal interpretation" of the Book of Genesis, even so far as to graphically illustrate some of the more violent stories in the text. Some of his visual interpretations, however, are refreshing in regard to familiar biblical images. For example, while most illustrations of Noah and the ark depict a bucolic scene in which the animals, two by two, calmly approach and board the giant boat, Crumb depicts the pairs of animals frantically fleeing the ark after it grounded on dry land.
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| The Book of Genesis Illustrated |
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| The Prince and the Dressmaker |
Wang, Jen. The Prince and the Dressmaker. New York: First Second Books, 2018. First edition. The graphic novel follows a cross-dressing Sebastian, the Crown Prince of Belgium, and his alter, Crystallia, and their potentially romantic relationship with Frances, the seamstress who designs Crystallia's elaborate dresses.
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| The Prince and the Dressmaker |
Wang, a cartoonist and illustrator, developed the fairytale story from an idea about a superhero-like character who created clothes which transformed the people who wore them. She originally wrote the main characters older but adapted them to teenagers to heighten the conflicts of the story. The Prince and the Dressmaker won the 2018 Harvey Award for Best Children's or Young Adult Book and the 2019 Eisner Award for Best Publication for Teens.
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| Run: Book One |
Lewis, John and Andrew Aydin. Run: Book One. New York: Abrams ComicArts, 2021. First edition. Run follows Lewis's autobiographical trilogy March. In March, Lewis tells his life story. In Run, Lewis shares specific stories from his life to illustrate lessons from the civil rights movement and to inspire young people to continue to engage in "good trouble" in the pursuit of civil and human rights, equality and opportunity, and voting rights and defending democracy. The complete story arc for Run was conceived and outlined by Lewis following the completion of March. Work commenced on the Run series prior to Lewis's death in 2020 but Book One was published posthumously.
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| Run: Book One |
This copy is signed on a limited-edition bookplate affixed to the title page by Andrew Ayden (story), L. Fury (art), and Nate Powell (art and lettering).
