Cânone Gráfico I - Clássicos da Literatura Universal em Quadrinhos

The Graphic Canon #1

by Russ Kick (org.), Will Eisner, Robert Crumb

THE GRAPHIC CANON (Seven Stories Press) is a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind trilogy that brings classic literatures of the world together with legendary graphic artists and illustrators. There are more than 130 illustrators represented and 190 literary works over three volumes—many newly commissioned, some hard to find—reinterpreted here for readers and collectors of all ages.

Volume 1 takes us on a visual tour from the earliest literature through the end of the 1700s. Along the way, we're treated to eye-popping renditions of the human race's greatest epics: Gilgamesh, The Iliad, The Odyssey (in watercolors by Gareth Hinds), The Aeneid, Beowulf, and The Arabian Nights, plus later epics The Divine Comedy and The Canterbury Tales (both by legendary illustrator and graphic designer Seymour Chwast), Paradise Lost, and Le Morte D'Arthur. Two of ancient Greece's greatest plays are adapted—the tragedy Medea by Euripides and Tania Schrag’s uninhibited rendering of the very bawdy comedy Lysistrata by Aristophanes (the text of which is still censored in many textbooks). Also included is Robert Crumb’s rarely-seen adaptation of James Boswell’s London Journal, filled with philosophical debate and lowbrow debauchery.

Religious literature is well-covered and well-illustrated, with the Books of Daniel and Esther from the Old Testament, Rick Geary’s awe-inspiring new rendition of the Book of Revelation from the New Testament, the Tao te Ching, Rumi’s Sufi poetry, Hinduism’s Mahabharata, and the Mayan holy book Popol Vuh, illustrated by Roberta Gregory. The Eastern canon gets its due, with The Tale of Genji (the world’s first novel, done in full-page illustrations reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley), three poems from China’s golden age of literature lovingly drawn by pioneering underground comics artist Sharon Rudahl, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, a Japanese Noh play, and other works from Asia.

Two of Shakespeare’s greatest plays (King Lear and A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and two of his sonnets are here, as are Plato’s Symposium, Gulliver’s Travels, Candide, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Renaissance poetry of love and desire, and Don Quixote visualized by the legendary Will Eisner.

Some unexpected twists in this volume include a Native American folktale, an Incan play, Sappho’s poetic fragments, bawdy essays by Benjamin Franklin, the love letters of Abelard and Heloise, and the decadent French classic Dangerous Liaisons, as illustrated by Molly
Crabapple.

 
Edited by Russ Kick, The Graphic Canon is an extraordinary collection that will continue with Volume 2: "Kubla Khan" to the Bronte Sisters to The Picture of Dorian Gray in Summer 2012, and Volume 3: From Heart of Darkness to Hemingway to Infinite Jest in Fall 2012. A boxed set of all three volumes will also be published in Fall 2012.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Classics, Fiction, Art, Anthologies, Graphic Novels Comics

456 pages, Board book

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Editor of the website The Memory Hole which publishes and archives hidden US government documents, including scientific studies and reports, civil rights-related reports, intelligence and covert action reports.

He was also editor-at-large for The Disinformation Company, where he had published several books including The Book of Lists and 50 Things You're Not Supposed to Know.

Reviews

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Graphic Canon is the entire world canon in comic form, containing abridgments or excerpts of tons of terrific stories, from Gilgamesh to Les Liaisons Dangereuses. But who cares about abridgments or excerpts? To whom are they useful?

I started by comparing Valerie Schrag's adaptation of Aristophanes' best-known and dirtiest play Lysistrata (411 BC) to Douglass Parker's translation. I was...actually sortof into it. It's charming and effective. Certainly summarized: it cuts so many lines out that it can't really be called a translation. It loses, for example, the terrific oath sworn by the Greek women:

I will withhold all rights of access or entrance
From every husband, lover, or casual acquaintance
Who moves in my direction in erection...

until the Peloponnesian War is ended.

But it does get the basic points, and it gets the spirit of the thing better than Parker's does. Parker comes across like a teenager, eagerly and clumsily over-trying to match the original's tone; Schrag feels like your friend's cool older sister, breezing through. Parker seems terribly proud of himself when he gets through a dirty part; Schrag is more, y'know, "and here are some boners."

So okay, Shrag's Lysistrata is cool. I like it better than Parker's version. I don't think it's exactly the entire play, but it's the right idea.

The rest of the volume is mixed. Tori McKenna's Medea is wonderfully moody, but it misses all of the subtlety of Euripides' original so it's not really viable.

Edmonds and Farritor's "Coyote and the Pebbles" is stunning; I haven't read that Native American folktale in any other version, so maybe that's why I'm so impressed. Anyway, it's great to me.

The Dixons' rendition of the Bull of Heaven bit from Gilgamesh is fun, but who cares? It's a minor episode. Why didn't they do Humbaba, shit.

The extremely brief excerpt from Lucretius is cool and all, but...again, what do we gain from two pages of a 200-page book? The selection makes it seem like it's like Silent Spring or something, which is terribly misleading.

So: it's entertaining but hardly necessary. The main reason you might buy it is if your kid is into comics and you want to stealth-introduce him to literature. Hide it on a high shelf. Let him find it on its own and realize with a thrill that it's full of nudity. Let him feel like he's getting away with something. And then boom! Lysistrata, bitch, you're educated. High five yourself, parent of the year.

[Dov Zeller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has its ups and downs but all in all it's a nice reminder of the depth and breadth of our literary histories, and also a beautiful compendium of styles and approaches to adaptation. It's great to see the passion graphic artists have for their beloved prosy and/or poetical works.

Some perks: there are great prefaces to each adaptation contextualizing the text and its graphic adaptation. Also, a lot of artists are not published in a main-stream widely accessible format aside from these books, and so it's great to have an introduction to their work.

My main complaint is that a lot of the adaptations are short and come from the middle of books and they are confusing and unsatisfying and even if I wanted to read the rest, well, for most of the graphicized excerpts there is no rest. Also, a few of the adaptations are inscrutable.

I got the first two volumes of the Graphic Canon out of the library (most of the books I read are library books) and enjoyed them both. I am right now reading the childrens literature one. I imagine they are all prohibitively expensive to buy, thought I haven't checked to see, and I suppose prohibitively expensive to me might not be prohibitively expensive to others. In any case I highly recommend checking them out of the library at the very least. A lot of fun and a lot to think about.

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

As with any compilation of stories, this is a mixed bag. Some of the adaptations are well done, but many are pretty bad.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

As in every compilation book with multiple contributors, it's hard to rate the book as a whole. There are some stories in here I'd give five stars, some I'd give one star. But the real question when discussing this book is, "Does this need to exist?" And the answer: "Kinda sorta." Most of the really great adaptations in here are excerpts from larger works, such as Gareth Hinds' adaptation of The Odyssey or Kevin Dixon's of The Epic of Gilgamesh, so in that sense The Graphic Canon is redundant. But there are a few original adaptations here that are pretty genius. I'll review my favorites below.

The other question that needs to be asked is, "Does this book teach?" And the answer: "Most definitely not." In all but perhaps one or two instances, if one does not know the works adapted in this volume already, she will not be any better off after having read the adaptations. So when reading this, it must be viewed as supplemental rather than substitutive.



The Epic of Gilgamesh, adapted by Kevin Dixon - 5 stars!

As I've recently reviewed, I really liked Gilgamesh. It's zany, it's bloody, it's funny, which all come together to make a great graphic novel. The excerpt relates the episode in which Gilgamesh and Enkidu slay the Bull of Heaven, which is a really messy affair, as you'll observe above. Dixon is in the midst of adapting the entire epic in graphic form, so I can't wait for when it's all finished and can be bought in paper form.




Lysistrata by Aristophanes, adapted by Valerie Schrag - 3 stars

This is a very straightforward interpretation of Lysistrata, the bawdy tale of a group of women who decide to stop the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex from their husbands. The thing I've never understood about this play, though... their husbands are hundreds of miles away, so they can't have sex anyway... how is withholding sex from an absent husband an effective means of persuasion?



The Book of Revelation, adapted by Rick Geary - 5 stars!

Revelation is such a visual, trippy book, I'm surprised I haven't seen a comic version of it before. The art beautifully and intricately displays the symbolism involved in the biblical apocalypse, and while it may not give an unfamiliar reader a good idea of the text itself, it is a truly enriching experience for someone familiar and interested in it. This is probably my favorite adaptation in The Graphic Canon.



Mahabharata by Vyasa, adapted by Matt Wiegle

I wasn't familiar with this classic work of ancient India, but it's the world's longest poem... so that's pretty cool. This short episode from it is barely a snippet, a vignette of a conspiracy to burn a temple, and it's a lot of fun. The Chris Ware-ish, OCD-type art is great.



The Inferno by Dante, adapted by Hunt Emerson - 5 stars!

This is such a hilarious take on the Inferno, and really I think it's the only good way to talk about hell - with levity. This is dark humor at its best. Emerson is at work on a full adaptation of the Inferno, and I'll definitely read it when it's published.

The moral of this review: The Graphic Canon is worth it if you don't mind sifting through the junk. There are some gems here. And may I say that I'm excited about the next two volumes, the third of which ends with Infinite Jest, a novel which could be great or awful in graphic form.

[Elizabeth A · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a fun book dip in and out of, and while I had heard of, if not read, most of these classics, there were some that were completely new to me. The thing to know before reading, is that this is a sampling of these classic stories - abridged, or a chapter of two of each. The graphics are simply wonderful, and while I did not love each and every one, there are many that are fantastic. I've added the next in the series to my TBR pile.

[Christopher Rush · Rating 1 out of 5]

Blerg. Despite all the accolades Russ Kick and the collected artists/adapters have apparently garnered, this isn't really that good of a collection. It is quite evident from the beginning most of the people involved have no real affinity for the subject matter, certainly not in any way remotely resembling respect. The biographies of the artists celebrate the fact most of them delight in creating underground and subversive material - which is certainly fine for them.

Admittedly, a number of the "classics" were subversive in their own way, but to subvert the subversive does not really present the "canon" in the way it probably should be understood, even for a graphic version. I'm not facile enough to doubt that the ancient world had graphic content, but Kick seems to have committed his collection to presenting nothing but the most graphic, most crude, most sexual parts of world literature - and then either present them in an insincere way or exaggerate their content for no apparent reason other than to act like "see, the classical world was dirty minded just like us, so nothing matters" ... or something.

I really don't understand what Kick and Co. were trying to do with this. It certainly wasn't an attempt to present the "canon," since the selections are either too superficial or too obscure to really do that. Likewise, the brief sketches in the index demonstrate the modern-is-where-it's-at attitude. With only a few essentially requisite exceptions, all the "for further reading and commentary check these volumes out" mentions are painfully slanted in favor of the last decade, as if the "research" done was found on someone's blog or Amazon's recommendation list. Not that I'm against contemporary scholarship, being a fledgling scholar in the 21st century myself, but to present a work supposedly about introducing the classical canon and ignore the older commentaries or editions (or mentioning them mostly with pejorative language!) in favor of "recent is better" was quite painful (like most of the book as a whole).

It's definitely more "graphic" than "canon." If you are into that, go for it. If you really want to get to know the classics, read them in their entirety, crude parts and the not crude parts together. Not only will they make more sense to you the reader, but it will be more respectful (at the least) to the original authors and material.

[Murat · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Efsanevi grafik sanatçıları ve illüstratörler ile Dünya edebiyatının öne çıkan eserleri bir arada!"

tanıtımıyla gördüğüm bu seri bir edebiyat ve çizgi roman sever olarak beni meraklandırdı.

3 kitaptan oluşan ve kronolojik bir seyri olan serinin

1 ncisi Gılgamış Destanı'ndan Shakespeare'e
2 ncisi "Kubilay Han"'dan Bronte Kardeşlere
3 ncüsü ise Karanlığın Yüreği'nden Tükenmeyen Nükte'ye kadar olan edebiyat eserlerine dair illustrasyonları, çizimleri, çizgi hikayeleri kapsıyor.

Her çizgiden önce de; ilgili eser ve eser sahibi ile, edebiyat tarihindeki yeri hakkında 1'er sayfalık bilgiler yer alıyor.

Şüphesiz çok büyük bir emek var bu seride ve bence muhteşem bir fikir. Ancak seri bazı nedenlerden beklentilerimin altında kaldı;

1. Bu tarz bir derlemede elbette edebiyat seçimleri üzerinde eleştiriler olacaktır. Benim de var; tek tek "şu yazar niye yoktu şu eser niye vardı" eleştirisinden öte, ciltlerin en arkasında yer alan "ülke/coğrafi bölge" dizininden de anlaşılacağı üzere fazla Amerika/İngiltere merkezli bir seri bu.

Özellikle 20 nci yüzyılı kapsayan 3 ncü ciltte, okurken sıkıldığım ve kendimi zorladığım bir dizi modern Amerikan saçmalığı bulunurken, -Doğu Dünyasını geçtim-, İngiltere dışı Batı'ya oldukça az yer verildiği düşüncesindeyim.

2. Mükemmel illustrasyonlar ve çizimler olduğu gibi, beş para etmez bir çoğu da seride yer almakta. Bunların kitapları ne kadar yansıttığı da ayrı bir tartışma konusu tabii ki. Editör, sanatçılardan bir tek olay örgüsü, karakterler ve metin açısından edebi eserlere sadık kalmalarını istediğini, bunun dışında tamamen serbest olduklarını belirtmiş. Ben kendi adıma, özellikle okumadığım kitaplar için soyut ve "tamamen serbest" çizimler yerine, kitapların en azından vurucu bölümlerini gösteren çizgi-hikayeleri görmeyi tercih ederdim. Seride böyle bir çok hikaye olduğu gibi, size edebi eser hakkında hiç bir bilgi vermeyecek üstelik çizgi yönünden de değersiz bulduğum bir çok bölüm var. Neyse ki, eserler ve sahipleri hakkında 1 sayfalık bilgilendirme bölümü bulunuyor.

Özetle, " düşünce iyi ama..." durumu söz konusu benim açımdan genel olarak.

Yine de; tekrar tekrar dönüp baktığım muhteşem bölümler var, okumak üzere not aldığım ve şimdiye kadar varlığından haberdar olmadığım yazarlar, eserler var. Bu bakımdan faydalıydı.

[Fran · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my second anthology in this graphic series by Russ Kick. Volume 2, was the only on they had at the time, so I read them out of order, and I am just as impressed with this collection as I was the first. It covers such a broad range of world literature with as varied artists too. Each interpretation is left up to the individual artist, which sometimes makes it feel very disjointed and not all renderings were comfortable to look at. None the less, it is a treasure of new authors and works to read unabridged. My only disappointment, was that the lack of female writers! Only a couple - literally - out of dozens! Not cool Kick, not cool.

[E.A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I don't know about this. Maybe graphic novels don't interest me as much as I thought, or maybe it's the fragmentary nature of the anthology format. It was interesting to see a variety of styles but most didn't do much for me. Mainly I was frustrated by the really short adaptations created just for this volume. Extracts from longer works managed better to convey an impression of what could be achieved.

[Eva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well that was....a thing? I guess?
I have to concur with many other readers. There doesn't seem to be a point to this. The works collected here are extremely variable in quality (the art for the Rumi section was particularly disappointing, being mostly tacky Photoshopping), and the fragmentary nature of it was just not satisfying. If you want to present the graphic canon, do it! Don't present "half-assed fragments of graphic versions of the canon." There were a few standout works, but the majority either added nothing to the original text or subtracted from it.

[Nostalgia Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

I knew this was going to be hit or miss, like any compellation of art styles, but this was just disappointing. There were a few adaptations that I liked (Inferno, Hagoromo, Popol Vuh, Faerie Queene, Gulliver's Travels, and Paradise Lost), but even then, these were all excerpts from a larger retelling of the entire story. While obviously entire epic poems can't be included in this, not even full chapters/cantos are included in many instances; rather they just cut off abruptly, or start in the middle of action so characters aren't introduced. This, combine with the off-putting styles of many artists (sorry, just not for me) just made this boring.

Many of the adaptions I did just completely skip over since the art style was horrendous (personal style preferences), which also meant I skipped some things that I was wanting to give a shot, but just couldn't because it was so awful for my eyes to look at (and many of the fonts are.... not readable).

Nothing amazing in here, still worth a flip through if you like classic lit, and would be a great way to introduce adaptions to lit or art students. But just as an overall collection of adaptations for the general classic lit nerd... meh. I'm not trying to diss the concept of comics and art bing used to adapt and retell classics, it's just that most of these did nothing for me, or made me re-fall in love with stories I already loved.

I'm going to read the other two volumes, but already flipping through Book 2, which has got much more stuff I'm familiar with at a glance, and I have very little hope for enjoying that one either.

(Also very disappointed because Faerie Queene is pimped as being available online, but it looks like that domain isn't valid any longer and GUYS, IT IS A WEIRD ARCTIC STEAMPUNK RETELLING, I NEED THIS.)

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I especially enjoyed tales from the Mayan and other cultures I would not have otherwise encountered.
The Rumi poetry was lovely, heart warming, comforting. I also delighted in an alternative perspective of Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day” (Sonnet XVIII). Told from a son recalling a summer memory of his mother.
Loved the mystical nun artwork, as well as The Book of Ester as a whole.

I would be intrigued to see what else was considered. The Book of Kells comes to mind, as does Utopia (or something by Thomas More), Machiavelli’s The Prince, Faust, an opera (although it might be that early opera (1600’s) seem to be heavy with Greek/Roman history/mythology), some Norse Mythology, some Egyptian literature, the tale of Anansi or African folk tale (understandable that much of it might be oral and thus difficult to put a date on it).

I appreciated that these volumes cover both the familiar and undiscovered for me, helping to reveal knowledge gaps or expose me to that which I might not have considered. It also makes classical literature feel more accessible.

I hope that I can seek out some of the artists’ work.

[Li · Rating 5 out of 5]

Consider this to be a loose introduction to both a large number of famous works of world literature but also to almost as many illustrators and/or graphic artists. Each famous story excerpt starts with the basics of who, what, where, when, why, which is often pulled from a scholar's literature. The graphics range from monochromatic stick figures to lush and multi-colored.

Don't expect to get deeply into any of them. There is just enough information to whet your appetite to learn more. Each story runs anywhere from 2 pages to 10 pages on average, so you can see how many excerpts are in each volume -- a lot!

This is volume 1 of 3, and each volume is oversized, heavy, and has over 500 pages to it. My biggest complaint is that the volumes are unwieldy to hold onto while reading. I tried sitting it on my lap, on a footstool in front of me, and on the dining room table. A raised holder, like one uses to hold music while playing, would probably work well.

[Geoff Winston Leghorn Balme · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous phone book sized collection of excerpts and selections of great writings from antiquity up to the renaissance. It is also pan cultural even touching on some famous native American bits. It’s virtually a textbook in topic and scope. Along with that are the wide range of fantastic art styles from coarse and direct to dazzling and sublime. This is my second read through after several yrs and I’m still enamored. It’s a brilliant merging of arts. I only wish it were longer! One of these just for the greeks or the native Americans would be better. On to the next volume!!

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rich and fun collection of condensed or excerpted literary works from Gilgamesh (1000 BCE) to Dangerous Liaisons (1782). All kinds of artistic styles and media are on display, including some exceptionally clever adaptations. There were a handful of samples I found dull or impossible to follow, and a number of others whose original works I hadn't heard of, but it was overall an entertaining trip through the long history of world literature. Volumes two and three continue the chronological journey.

[Ashlyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of the artwork and storytelling is excellent, but almost every piece in this compilation is a snippet of a larger work and leaves the story very incomplete. Some selections don't even have what could be considered plot arcs at all. It's unfortunate given the creativity and effort the artists clearly put into the work, and I want to point the finger at the chief editors for missing the mark.

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Graphic Canon is a wonderful and inspired idea; it collects the work of many graphic artists, much of it original, after asking them to reimagine a classic tale. In this particular volume, stories span the Bible to the eighteenth century. A plethora of art styles and interpretations are offered. Whilst I will not be seeking out many of the individual artists featured here, and whilst my favourite entry was unsurprisingly by Isobel Greenberg, it is a wonderful book to own, and I will undoubtedly read it again at some point.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Der Herausgeber Russ Kick legt den ersten von drei Bänden einer Anthologie vor, die die großen Werke der Literatur als Graphic Novel adoptiert. Es wurde mehrfach kritisiert und muß dem Käufer / Leser natürlich klar sein, dass er größtenteils nur (sehr) kleine Häppchen der Originaltexte serviert bekommen kann, denn der vorliegende Band hat "nur" 502 Seiten, was nicht einmal ansatzweise für die komplette Bearbeitung zum Beispiel der "Faerie Queene" reichen würde. Wer das Buch kauft, um sich in vergnüglicher Kurzform den Inhalt der Weltliteratur von den Anfängen bis zum späten 18. Jahrhunder einzuverleiben oder seinen Kindern die Literatur näher zu bringen, ist hier sicherlich nicht wirklich gut bedient. Was aber leistet "The Graphic Canon Vol. 1. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons"?
Unterschiedlichste Künstler haben sich ohne Berührungsängste daran gemacht, Auszüge aus Werken der Literatur in die Form der Graphic Novel zu bringen, egal, ob es sich um Epen, Gedichte, Dramen, Märchen oder Romane handelt. Die Länge der einzelnen Bearbeitungen variiert stark zwischen 3 und 15 Seiten. Die Zeichnungen, teils farbig, teils schwarz/weiß, sind stilistisch sehr unterschiedlich und decken so ziemlich die gesamte Bandbreite der Comic-Art ab. Es dürfte also für jeden Geschmack etwas dabei sein. Entsprechend sollte der Leser offen für unterschiedliche Inhalte und Stile sein, um nicht enttäuscht zu werden.
Ganz grundsätzlich ist es immer ärgerlich, wenn die Verfilmung eines Romans mit dem Roman selbst verglichen wird, denn Buch und Film sind nun einmal zwei sehr unterschiedliche Medien. Und so muss auch bei diesem Graphic Canon von Anfang an klar sein, dass es sich um eine Anthologie handelt, die auf Position Eins die Arbeiten verschiedener graphischer Künstler vorstellt. Das verbindende Element ist dann, dass es sich um die Adaption literarischer Texte handelt. Ein Vergleich des Inhaltes der Adaption mit dem Originaltext läßt den graphischen (Haupt-)Anteil außer acht.
Das Buch stellt inhaltlich und stilistisch eine wahre Fundgrube dar und ich nehme es immer wieder in die Hand, blättere darin und lese mich dann fest. Auch das ist ein Vorzug einer Anthologie: man muß sie ja nicht von vorne nach hinten und in einem Zuge durchlesen, sondern kann gezielt oder auch zufällig auf einzelne Geschichten stoßen und sich überraschen lassen. So wird mich dieser Band noch lange begleiten; und danach? Nun, es gibt ja schon Vol.2 und der dritte Band wird in 2013 erscheinen.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was thrilled to have won this from Goodreads and waited impatiently for it to arrive. It was worth the wait. I haven't been reading graphic novels for very long but it took a very short amount of time to realize that the limited space afforded to the author and artist oftentimes makes for a more powerful story. It is distilled down to its essentials and is all the stronger for it.

A lot of these stories I was already familiar with and it was like seeing an old friend, there are changes but underneath they are still the same. There were also many that I had never even heard of before and it was fun to explore these new stories.

My only complaint was that these were mostly samplings of existing graphic novels because of the limited space. It does however serve as a wonderful reference volume to guide you to further reading.

The artwork was stunning and I was thrilled that a lot of it was in color. Each story had a wonderful introduction by the editor giving relevant background information on the original work and its author as well as on the artists that were doing the adaptations.

I know that it is a book I will keep going back to again and again to simply enjoy the artwork or re-read my favorite stories. I cannot wait for volumes 2 and 3 to come out this summer.

[Anders · Rating 4 out of 5]

So this was pretty cool. Given to me by a friend for xmas because I like graphic novels and such, I was particularly looking forward to the ancient Greek adapted sections.

The editor of the collection, Russ Kick, put little introductions to each work that not only gave you some background on the work that was being adapted, which was often insightful if brief, but also some background info on the adapter of the work (He also has sections in the back, which are also brief, and expand on such things).

The adaptations were as different as any adaptation can be varying from faithful attempts to portray whatever time period and setting of the work to humorous adaptations to shifting the story into a different period of time. Most retained the original text (or a common translation), but a few branched out even in this area.

Mostly very enjoyable. I'm a fan of the graphic novel as a medium. The Iliad adaptation was in particular very good. Overall, it read like a series of short stories. For many of the longer works only a piece was adapted and inserted into the collection.

Definitely worth checking out.

[Miroku Nemeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will just say that there are things unearthed in this volume that are gems and rare metals, and others, pure fool's gold.

Some of the art was excellent, some simply repulsive and truly an insult to the literature. I found the overview of literature throughout the ages itself and the breadth of selections within the anthology very enjoyable.

I also found this beautiful:

How prone we are to sin; how sweet were made
The pleasures our resistless hearts invade.
Of all my crimes, the breach of all thy laws,
Love, soft bewitching love, has been the cause.
Of all the paths that vanity has trod,
That sure will soonest be forgiven by God.
If things on earth may be to heaven resembled,
It must be love, pure, constant, undissembled.
But if to sin by chance the charmer press,
Forgive, O Lord, forgive our trespasses.

....."And Forgive Us Our Trespasses"
by Aphra Behn (1640-89)

[Metin Yılmaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evet gerçekten güzel bir çalışma ve evet çok büyük emek var ama beklediğim kadarını bulamadım. Belki diğer ciltlerde değişir fikrim. Belki de içine çok alamadı beni bilemiyorum. Böylesi bir eser için sanki biraz daha fazla özen ve dikkat olmalı. Herşeyi koymak ya da her telden olsun demek yerine az ama öz daha mı iyi olurdu acaba? Neyse sanırım erken karar bu benimkisi. Daha ilk cildi bitirdim. Sonra yazdığım yorumu değiştirmek zorunda kalmayayım :)

[Phil Overeem · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW! I cannot wait for Volume 2 (October) and Volume 3 (March 2013). A marvelous array of lit and graphic styles, and just the thing to motivate you to read the whole canon before you die. It is graphic in more ways than one, but it still would be a great stimulant for young minds striving to become citizens of the world.

[Ryandake · Rating 5 out of 5]

ay! don't even ask why. just go read it.

[Deirdre · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeah, I dunno. I didn't love this experience. The good: I liked encountering works of literature from other ancient cultures that I hadn't previously encountered. I will probably go back through and figure out what I want to find and read. There was also some beautiful and thought-provoking artwork - I particularly appreciated the selection from the book of Esther and the one about the flammable house. And it was fun to read through and wonder what was coming next.

The bad: I found the quality of the art variable in disappointing ways - like, the range was from 'incompetent' to 'excellent,' whereas you hope that something calling itself a canon will have a range from 'good' to 'excellent.'

Furthermore, I found the interpretation of the works themselves, as canon, peculiar in some places. I have certainly not read all of the works included here, but as an English Lit and Classical Studies major, I have encountered a lot! Beowulf, Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, the book of Esther, the book of Revelation, the book of Daniel, The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, Shakespeare, John Donne...some of the selections were so small as to reveal little about the work in question had you not previously read it, some were straight-up confusing, some of the 'flavours' were off, and even the better work was disappointing because much of it wasn't available as a graphic novel in long form.

Lastly, the tone of the collection leans toward the violent, sexually graphic, and scatalogical, to what I consider an unhelpful extreme. Yes, the ancient writers, like the writers of today, wrote about all these things, which is fine, but they did also write about a lot of other things, and I think this collection skews toward the titillating. To be brutally honest, the effect is similar to that produced by a bunch of six-year-olds laughing at fart jokes. And some of the selections - like from the 1001 Nights - are also so obscure as parts of that work as to be useless in deciding whether or not you want to read more of it elsewhere; seemingly these were chosen just because of their shock value. If you're going to call your work a canon, I think that you need to be true, insofar is it is possible, to the breadth of expression and values of the art at hand, as opposed to riding your own culture's hobby-horse into the fray.

ANYWAYS. Maybe I'm a prude, or too fond of historical flavour and context after my years of considering historical context for work, or too literature-major for the intended audience of this book, BUT this is my review saying what I think, and this is what I think!

[Mickey Bits · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew! This one was a bit of a slog, but useful nonetheless. As a teacher, I find that graphic novels are (regrettably) very useful tools for introducing reluctant readers to various title in literature, be it poetry or prose. Illustrations draw in the reader and make the words more... palatable.

The same can be said for those non-reluctant folks who tend to be more widely read but may still be reluctant to delve into older and prolix titles. Volume 1 of the Graphic Canon is the perfect vehicle for this. As I began reading I was familiar with approximately 75% of the included works. The remaining quarter was new to me and I was glad have been introduced.

Illustrations notwithstanding, some of the selections were as indecipherable and rather uninteresting. This is more than made up for with many excellent selections. Many of the entries deal with sex and relationships and are all unbowdlerized. Teachers be forewarned more than a few illustrations will be cause for snickering (see esp. Lysistrata).

The "Further Reading" and author information sections at the back of the book are particularly useful for those wanting to delve deeper on a particular title, and to introduce you to some other esoteric titles by the many contributors.

While looking up information on the editor, Russ Kick, I learned that he unfortunately died back in 2021. I imagine he would be glad that his works live on. I am so glad he was able to release all three parts of the Graphic Canon, including a couple additional ones too. This would be a very good addition to a high school classroom library.

I look forward to working my way through the next two parts of this series. Highly recommended.

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, first of all, I am not a fan of graphic novels, so my rating is a bit biased (though to be fair, everyone's ratings are always biased). I didn't have high hopes going in, but was hoping for 1) a bit of a literary education, 2) something new, and 3) a quick read to do some catch-up on my 2021 reading goal.

I got the first two, but #3 was a dud. I think graphic novels would be quick to read for me if I was used to reading them, but there was SO MUCH going on in every page that I had a hard time focusing on where I was supposed to be looking. Then it was trying to absorb the words (which weren't written in any sort of skimmable pattern) and the art at the same time, and it just didn't work for me.

At any rate, I did enjoy a few of the pieces in this anthology, but not many. A couple were just stunning art, and I loved the aesthetics of the pages regardless of the actual story; others were modern retellings of classic stories and were at times amusing, so that was enjoyable. Much of the art, however, was absolutely not my style and I found myself bored nearly to tears for a majority of the book.

Again, I will admit I don't enjoy graphic novels on the whole, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but if you're looking to dabble in the graphic novel genre, take it from another noob: don't start here.

[Cale · Rating 4 out of 5]

'A Sampler'

That really should be added to the title. And yes, while it should be obvious that 50 classics in 500 pages of graphic art is not going to include the entire Bible, Vedas, and Gilgamesh, it's still a bit disappointing how small the pieces included are. You get one of Dante's Circles of Hell, one scene from King Lear, and a dozen lines of Sappho's poetry (although the poetry is better represented than the larger works).
I will give the book credit for its coverage - it isn't focused entirely on western Literature, including classics of China, folk tales of Native Americans, and other pieces from around the world.
As with any compilation, quality varies from piece to piece. I'd say there's a pretty even split between stunning visuals and art styles that hardly even look professional (again, the poems usually came out better than the longer works).
Ultimately, while I respect the work done in creating this collection, I think what it really shows is that this approach to providing graphic representations of the major works of world literature can't be realistically presented in such a manner. At least not without giving the artists, the literature, and the readers short shrift.

[Risa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This entire project should be lauded for its scale and the collaborative effort put into producing it, but it falls short in terms of variety (only a few non-European and non-American works are included) and quality at times. I understand the decision to limit most adaptations to excerpts from a logistic point of view, but experiencing these stories through bite-sized, incomplete chunks was unsatisfying and actually bewildering at times, especially if I was unfamiliar with the source material.

I also felt there was (mostly towards the end) an insistent emphasis on more scatological works and while I don't consider myself prudish in the content and media I consume by any means, it did make me wonder if these works were being featured for any reason beyond their shock value.

I did enjoy a number of the featured works, mostly the poems, which were largely kept intact. And there is a lot of beautiful, evocative artwork in this collection. I do have the second and third volumes, which I suspect I may enjoy more, since the stories in the first volume are much older and less familiar to me.

[Annu · Rating 2 out of 5]

This just didn't work for me. The very short (often one page) selections were jarring, and a lot of the intros didn't give enough context for the selection they had. But my biggest issue was that I just didn't like a lot of the comics! The majority of the art is that 70s druggie style which I hate. A few are specifically described as having a "grotesque" style in the intros and that makes classic literature impossible to follow. Many more had writing that was messy/too stylized and extremely difficult to read. Also I've never seen so many extremely unattractive naked boobs, so many of these drawing styles don't work with nudes. Since the styles are so different and the selections so short I couldn't get into any of the styles enough to keep up with them. It made the whole thing an incredibly slow and frustrating read.

Overall it had the feeling of a 90s high school zine. I like the idea but couldn't get into any of this. I'd have enjoyed it more and read it faster if it had been a text compilation, which is pretty sad.