New Books from Old

Publishers Weekly takes an extensive look at turning classics into comics.

From the piece...

Graphic novel adaptations of classic and contemporary prose works have surged in the past few years as more publishers explore ways to create book-length comics that can be used to encourage literacy and can also function as legitimate works of art in their own right. The earliest comic adaptations of classic prose works were Classics Illustrated, started in 1941 by Albert Kanter. Highly abridged, these comics were meant to “slip some literature in as a gateway drug to real books,” says Jim Salicrup, the editor of the current line of Classics Illustrated from Papercutz, a publisher of children's and YA graphic novels.

The original Classics Illustrated were published until the early 1970s, according to Salicrup. Then, in 1990, First Comics and Berkley Comics brought the line back, “using top writers and artists” to create “more contemporary-looking books.” Papercutz acquired the line in 2007 and is now reprinting these First and Berkley books as hardcover editions, as well as publishing Classics Illustrated Deluxe, a new line of classic adaptations produced in Europe and translated for the U.S. market, which Salicrup said has “almost three times the pages of the original [Classics Illustrated].”

The Berkley and First Comics “were 20 years too early,” Salicrup claims. The publisher ran into a problem faced by other early publishers of adaptations and graphic novels in general: getting the books into general bookstores. Diamond Comics, the dominant distributor in the comics shop market, did not distribute to the general book market until recently, and trade bookstores chafed at buying on a nonreturnable wholesale basis as comics shops did. “Marketing the books proved difficult at first,” says Tom Pomplun, who started the Graphic Classics series of adaptations in 2001. Graphic Classics has published 18 books, “[concentrating] on presenting shorter pieces. The print run for graphic classics ranges from 3,000 to 10,000, he adds, and they are “never [selling] as much as I would like them to.”

But in recent years publishers from Marvel and Image Comics to trade book houses such as John Wiley, Penguin, and Abrams as well as educational publishers like Capstone and Abdo are adapting classic works of prose into comics in hopes of reaching new readers.