Book Review – The Great Gatsby: A graphic adaptation by Nicki Greenberg

If you are not a comic book writer or illustrator I’d suggest attending talks where these folk (sometimes one and the same person) talk about their process. In my case it has highlighted some of the ingenuity that my eyes have taken for granted.  I always find that in reading a comic or graphic novel that I am missing, at least consciously, some of the artistry that exists in the image work.

I had the great pleasure of listening to Nicki Greenberg talk about the process of adapting works to the visual form. It was literally eye opening, hearing her talk about choices, obstacles and opportunities for conveying information in the comic/visual genre.

Nicki is quite famous for having sold her first The Digits series, while still in high school. The Great Gatsby adapted from the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic was her labour of love begun and finished before she knew if it was available from a copyright standpoint( it was in Australia and New Zealand). 

Thankfully during the 6 years it took to create, the image (if you’ll excuse the pun) of comics or graphic novels improved and Allen & Unwin stepped in to publish it.

It’s 300 pages in length and slightly squat in its finished form.  The form is deliberate ( something I would not have noticed before) in that it is designed to mimic the dimensions of a photo album.  Each of the panels is bordered in photo edging and the entire book is done in sepia.  Nick Carraway our narrator is piecing together the events covered in the novel by way of constructing a photo album.

There’s some interesting effects that occur here, the reader is watching Carraway as he constructs the very book they are reading/viewing.

Greenberg has a reputation for drawing interesting non-human  depictions of characters and this is evident in the creation of a host of different creatures for the main characters in the book.  Nick Carraway is an unassuming slug, Daisy is a puff headed fluff ball, Gatsby a seahorse, Tom Buchannan a brutish ogre and Jordan Baker a squid, to name a few.  It’s interesting to map these depictions to certain character traits.

I haven’t read the original, but I do feel as though Greenberg has captured the era, and the zeitgeist well. The outrageously rich, the parties, the veneer and the shallowness.  I am now curious to read F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I think The Great Gatsby would work as an excellent gateway into appreciating what can and is being done with graphic novels.  I think fans or the original text will enjoy the visual interpretation and indeed will probably glean more from the adaptation than I would.

Clever and slightly bizarre, it fits the period well and was a pleasure to read.

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This review is part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014.  Please check out this page for more great writing from Australian women.

 

 

 

 

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Book Review : Fun Home – A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

I knew of Alison Bechdel from listening to the Galactic Suburbia Podcast, and knew of her particularly from the Bechdel test ( a rough rule of thumb for determining whether or not a creative work is gender biased). So on hearing that she was the headline act at the Comics Can Do Anything stream at Adelaide Writers Week I was determined to go and see her.

One of the best, most professional presenters I have seen in recent times.  If you get the chance to attend a talk by her, regardless of whether you are interested in feminism or QUILTBAG issues or graphic novels, go. You won’t be disappointed.

Fun Home seems to have been the book that really launched Bechdel to the wider world.  Previously she had been famous for her self syndicated comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For, which ran for some 31 years.  While I certainly enjoyed the humour, the observations and the political commentary in Dykes to Watch Out For I can see why Fun Home reached a wider audience.

For a start it’s a memoir and a somewhat tragic one at that, which explores Bechdel’s life and her relationship with her father.  People always seem drawn to a well articulated rendition of someone else’s misfortune or tragedy. But by and large it’s the choice of image, combined with Bechdel’s voiced over recollection that really made this work stand out for me. There’s a couple of stand out panels where the words and the image leave space for the reader to make connections, making for a subtle but powerful statement/impact on the reader.

There is a forward progression in the narrative but each chapter seems to pursue its own trajectory and as such it’s not a linear tale from early memory to Bechdel’s father’s death.  It seems to me to more like sitting and listening/watching different aspects of the same tale.  Bechdel following one thread of thought and imagery in one chapter and others in following chapters.  In that sense we get a layering, an organic approach, which to my mind is possibly more akin to how our own memory works than the standard chronological recording that might organise your standard memoir

It might have been post festival blues, but reading Fun Home did seem to leave me with a palpable sense of melancholy. That to my mind is a momentous achievement in any text, to engage with the emotions of the reader. 

Fun Home is a tragicomic, there’s sadness but there’s also recognition and love in all its diverse manifestations. 

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Sentients of Orion Graphic Novel Update

Fans of Marianne de Pierres will be excited to know that along with the rerelease of her Sentients of Orion books in the US there will be an exclusive graphic novel drawn by Wayne Haag aka Ankaris.

If you have not heard of Wayne, you might have seen the end results of some of his work in The Lord of the Rings, The Fifth Element and Wolverine where he’s worked as a matte painter.

Wayne’s website is here. The work he’s done for Marianne can be seen here.

 

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