The Problem of Susan and Other Stories

by Neil Gaiman, Lovern Kindzierski (Illustrator), Paul Chadwick (Illustrator)

From Hugo, Eisner, Newbery, Harvey, Bram Stoker, Locus, World Fantasy, and Nebula award-winning author Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell (The Sandman, The Giver), Scott Hampton (American Gods), and Paul Chadwick (Concrete) comes a graphic novel adaptations of the short stories and poems : The Problem of Susan, October in the Chair, Locks, and The Day the Saucers Came.Two stories and two poems. All wondrous and imaginative about the tales we tell and experience. Where the incarnations of the months of the year sit around a campfire sharing stories, where an older college professor recounts a Narnian childhood, where the apocalypse unfolds, and where the importance of generational storytelling is seen through the Goldilocks fairytale. These four comic adaptations have something for everyone and are a must for Gaiman fans!

Genres: Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Comics, Short Stories, Fiction, Horror, Graphic Novels Comics

77 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 23, 2019

Reviews

[Calista · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a fan of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe series as a child and I still enjoy it. The last book, Susan, one of the 4 children is separated from the other children. Neil Gaiman writes this short story about Susan after the other children are killed in a train crash.

Susan has to keep on living. She has to identify the bodies of her siblings, she has to live alone without parents and siblings. She is a professor and the real world goes on for her. She has to keep going. Susan was a children during WWII and this story takes place in the 80s because the interviewer of Susan references Matilda by Roald Dahl which was written in the 80s, so Susan is an older woman here.

The books were published and so the interviewer is asking Susan about why she didn't get to go on to the heaven areas with her siblings, was it really just hat she likes stockings and lipsticks. Susan tells her she wasn't on the train and so she lived.

There are some great philosophical questions asked in the story and the reader is allowed to make up their own mind on what is going on. The interviewer has a nightmare at the end that really twists the Narnia books. It's creepy and good.

I thought this avenue of thought about this story was really cool and I love Neil diving into this subject. I think this is a great short story for anyone who reads the Narnia books. The short story comes from Fragile Things.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Problem of Susan - Art by P. Craig Russell
I guess this part of The Chronicles of Narnia stuck in Gaiman's craw as well. He speculates how Susan went on living after C.S. Lewis killed off her family in The Last Battle. I've always had problems with parts of that final book.

Locks - Art by P. Craig Russell
A father tells his daughter the story of Goldilocks while worrying about her future.

October in the Chair - Art by Scott Hampton
The months meet around a campfire and tell stories. I quite liked this one and the art was great.

The Day the Saucers Came - Art by Paul Chadwick
This was a fun little vignette about every end of the world scenario happening on the same day.


Original Review - 2019
These are some pretty blase translations of Gaiman's short stories and poems. But I'm sure these sell well for Dark Horse given Gaiman's rabid fan base and P. Craig Russell seems determined to translate every work of Gaiman's into comic book form.

[Mitticus · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Problem of Susan
Story: 1 star . Just don't.
Art: -1 star

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dark Horse keeps pumping out these lifeless adaptations of Neil Gaiman's short stories. I keep checking them out from the library despite rarely enjoying them very much.

I feel we're caught in a cycle of mutual assured boredom...

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like the author, I always had a problem with how Susan was dealt with at the end of the Narnia books. Just because she began to like makeup and perhaps want a normal life didn't mean she had given up her faith or that she couldn't find it again. She had been disappointed in Narnia: what would it be like to grow up to adulthood in Narnia, think about making the correct political marriage for its citizens, maybe falling in love, and then going back to a young adult during a war. That couldn't have been easy. She was simply trying to fit in to the life that she has to live.

This story is a bit disturbing but well written. The images of the witch and the lion having sex does seem to come from out of left field. It also shows how harsh it was to have to identify the bodies and going on with no support system and very little money. She may never have been married and had children but it seems that she made something of herself. She didn't deserve what she got.

The story makes you think and the really good stories do that.

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection adapts four Neil Gaiman stories, all of which are about stories, how we tell them, and how we respond to them. My favourite was "October in the Chair," but for this review I'm going to focus on the title story.

In The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis includes a few lines about Susan that have caused a fair amount of controversy:

"Sir," said Tirian, when he had greeted all these. "If I have read the chronicles aright, there should be another. Has not your Majesty two sisters? Where is Queen Susan?"

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

"Oh Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

Regarding this passage, J.K. Rowling once said in an interview: "There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She’s become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that."

Many other people have expressed the same opinion. However, while I understand this interpretation, I think it's misunderstanding Lewis's intent. It views Jill's line about "nylons and lipsticks" as the main point when I think that actually belongs to Polly: She gave up on Narnia because she decided she was too grown up for it. I think its helpful to bring in another Lewis book here: The Great Divorce, in which we discover that everyone who is in hell is in it because they preferred it to heaven. Susan wasn't kicked out of Narnia for liking sex or for growing up or for embracing her femininity. Susan chose never to go back to Narnia because she preferred the real world. It's the same thing Lewis tries to express in the The Silver Chair:

The Witch shook her head. "I see," she said, "that we should do no better with your lion, as you call it, than we did with your sun. You have seen lamps, and so you imagined a bigger and better lamp and called it the sun. You've seen cats, and now you want a bigger and better cat, and it's to be called a lion. Well, 'tis a pretty make-believe, though, to say truth, it would suit you all better if you were younger. And look how you can put nothing into your make-believe without copying it from the real world, this world of mine, which is the only world. But even you children are too old for such play. As for you, my lord Prince, that art a man full grown, fie upon you! Are you not ashamed of such toys? Come, all of you. Put away these childish tricks. I have work for you all in the real world. There is no Narnia, no Overworld, no sky, no sun, no Aslan. And now, to bed all. And let us begin a wiser life to-morrow. But first, to bed; to sleep; deep sleep, soft pillows, sleep without foolish dreams."

...The pain itself made Puddleglum's head for a moment perfectly clear and he knew exactly what he really thought. There is nothing like a good shock of pain for dissolving certain kinds of magic.

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

Susan left Narnia because she saw it as childish and therefore inferior. It's like people who roll their eyes at the mention of faith and say "But you don't actually believe that anymore, right?" Surely all of this idealism can't stand up to the real world? Again I'm reminded of The Great Divorce, in which the residents of hell believe it to be more real than heaven when it is actually the exact opposite.

Okay, this is turning into an essay so let's finally turn back to Gaiman. In "The Problem of Susan," the primary focus is slightly different. At the end of The Last Battle, the Pevensies all die in a train crash, except for Susan. Gaiman explores how devastating it is for Susan to have to endure losing her entire family. It's a fair critique but I don't think it's fair to see this as Susan's "punishment." In fact, I suspect on this point, Lewis just wasn't thinking on those levels. But this brings us to the title. I suspect that in calling it "The Problem of Susan," Gaiman is not so subtly referencing another of Lewis's books: The Problem of Pain. To Gaiman, or at least to his characters, the real problem is the age-old question of why does God allow bad things to happen to good people. Or, in the context of Narnia, are Aslan and the White Witch really any different? Gaiman's characters conclude that they aren't and that maybe the real victim wasn't Susan but everyone else.

Gaiman said in an interview that he wasn't trying to critique Lewis so much as talk about how people read him, which I think fits. When the readers grow older, they no longer see Narnia as a beautiful nice place but as something darker. It's easy to find reviews where people say they loved the Narnia books until they became adults and recognized the Christian metaphors and the troubling bits (e.g. Susan). So they loved Narnia until they "grew up," which, interestingly, may have been the point of Susan all along.

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was familiar with most of these stories and poems from other places, so this is more a rating of the artists' artwork in retelling them. I'd consider 'The Day the Saucers Came' the high point, with Paul Chadwick's artwork exploding the poem into a larger sense of scale. And Scott Hampton's style adds a bit of extra flavor to October in the Chair. I was less impressed with the presentation of Russell's work on Locks and The Problem of Susan - the art is fine but doesn't really expand the story much (and some of the choices made in The Problem of Susan actually made it harder for me to read). Ultimately, I would rate this as one of the lesser Gaiman adaptations Dark Horse has done, although The Day the Saucers Came merits it at least a brief look.

[Neil R. Coulter · Rating 1 out of 5]

The “problem” of Susan is hardly a problem, and certainly not the problem that writers like Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, and J. K. Rowling make it out to be. In fact, without Susan’s loss of faith, the Narnia series would diminish in significant ways; it would become a shallow fairy tale that argues against free will. That’s not how Lewis saw the world. Anyway, this graphic novel adaptation of Gaiman’s short story about an elderly Susan is really dire. Gaiman being the author he is, he of course can’t imagine hopefulness or joy for any character who lives beyond childhood.

The other stories in this collection felt bland and unmemorable to me. It seems like a lot of effort to produce graphic novel versions of source material that gives so little to work with.

[Stewart Tame · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does the world really need another comics adaptation of Neil Gaiman stories? As long as we're talking talent on the level of P. Craig Russell, Scott Hampton, and Paul Chadwick, that answer is always going to be “Yes.” The day will come when everything Gaiman has ever written--even his early journalism. And the Duran Duran biography--will be available in comics form. And what then? Dark Horse will be on the phone. “Come on, Neil! Help us out. We’ve got top notch artists ready and waiting. Even a shopping list will do!”

Although, if anyone could write a compelling and moving story about a shopping list, my money's on Gaiman.

Anyway, The Problem of Susan and Other Stories adapts four of Gaiman’s short stories. One of these, “The Day the Saucers Came” with art by Paul Chadwick, was previously published in an issue of Dark Horse Presents. But the rest of these are brand new.

As a longtime admirer of P. Craig Russell’s work, I’m always happy to see his name on a book. There's a certain grace and delicacy of design that he brings to the page that never fails to take my breath away. Even when he's only doing layouts, as in “October In the Chair”, there are moments that are unmistakably his. The panel where September grumbles, “I’m done,” for instance.

As much as I love, “The Problem of Susan,” I think my favorite story in this volume is “Locks,” a nice riff on the classic tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It's cute and short and just really resonates with me for some reason.

Despite the cottage industry devoted to Gaiman adaptations, this book stands out from the pack, or at least it does for me anyway. Recommended!

[Newly Wardell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like I'm missing something. I was not interested in this story. The art didn't save it and maybe it wasn't trying to. I wasn't impressed again. Just not my cuppa

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Featuring a pair of Neil Gaiman's lesser short stories, as well as some back-up poems, The Problem of Susan feels extremely slight. The titular story is underwhelming unless you have a deep attachment to Narnia. Only "October in the Chair" feels unique and fascinating. I'd read a longer version of that story any day, perhaps giving each month the opportunity to weave a tale. The illustrated poems are skippable. P. Craig Russell's artwork, as always, is expertly matched to Gaiman's words, although it's never particularly exciting to look at.

[Angela Hanson · Rating 3 out of 5]

4 stars for "October in the Chair." I love Gaiman's personification of the months of the year. I wish we could hear November's story.

3 stars for the rest of the collection. While Gaiman's idea for "The Problem of Susan" was interesting, he had to completely recreate Lewis's not-tame-but-good Aslan into a not-tame-and-cruel Aslan in order to fit his twisted version of Narnia. If you view the story simply as Susan's one-sided and therefore not wholly accurate perspective, perhaps the story makes sense coming from an old woman who's memories have been warped by bitterness.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adaptations of some of Gaiman's short work. Some of these I'd read as short stories ("October in the Chair" is one of my favorites), but others I don't remember ever seeing before.
The artwork on "The Day the Saucers Came", a group of full-page pieces, is the highlight of the volume.

[Alicia Gorton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful illustrations. I love the Narnia books, and I thought expanding on Susan, as Neil Gaiman did was actually clever. It was surprising the twist he took between Aslan and the Witch, and honestly I’m not sure what to think of it. All I could think of was ‘what would C.S Lewis have responded with?’ But that’s the beauty of stories, they can be anything at all.

Reading the second to last story in the book was actually a pleasant surprise. I had heard the October In the Chair story such a long time ago it was barely a memory. Now I have pictures and written words to have it forever.

The very last story/poem was wonderful. A great finisher. I’m glad I have this illustrated book to add to my Gaiman collection.

[Jonathan Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Problem of Susan" is an incredibly hard-hitting criticism of Lewis' allegory of Susan as the apostate. Gaiman uses a surreal ending dream sequence to bounce the story out of its well earned melancholy and into something more sinister.

The other two stories included, "Goldilocks" and "October in the Chair", are a pure joy. They both extoll the virtue of telling stories to ourselves and to each other.

[Beci · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this after ending the Chronicles of Narnia. It made me realize how tragic and awful the implication of Susan's living at the end are.

I didn't really understand the two poems, but liked a lot the October's story. That was cool.

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favourite in this collection is The Problem of Susan. It was an interesting spin on the ending of CS Lewis's Narnia tales.
The other short stories are good too.

[Daniel Redel · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a fan of The Chronicles of Narnia, I always wondered what happened to Susan Pevensie. In The Last Battle, she is excluded from Narnia’s final paradise — “no longer a friend of Narnia” — because she became “interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick”. What does that even mean? As a child, I took it as a metaphor of her becoming too caught up with being an adult.

As an adult (?), that answer no longer feels sufficient. Susan didn’t just lose her belief in Narnia: she lost her entire family in a train crash. She is left alone in England, carrying the weight of those memories, the guilt, and perhaps the deep pain of having once been “Queen Susan the Gentle”, only to be stripped of it all.

Neil Gaiman’s The Problem of Susan wrestles with these questions. But it’s a dark and very disturbing take that forces us to sit with her grief.

Whether or not you agree with Gaiman, his story gives Susan the weight she deserves. It makes you think, and good stories do that.

[Patience · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to rate a collection of stories, but averaging the four of them, I'll give it 3.5. The whole collection really a stunning example of graphic novel/comic book as a unique form of story-telling.
Five stars to "October in the Chair" - it's beautifully illustrated and haunting but whimsical.
The Problem of Susan is a thought-provoking and difficult read as Gaiman wrestles with the fact that Susan is not Aslan's Country at the end of The Last Battle. After the train crash, Susan has to identify her siblings and says, "...he's enjoying himself a bit too much, isn't he? Like a cat getting the last ounce of enjoyment out of a mouse." As Gaiman wrestles with the problem of Susan (he concludes that Aslan must be cruel, leaving the line "He's not a tame lion" hanging without the response, "But he is good") he must alter the story to support his conclusion. Gaiman's Aslan kills (which is not inconsistent with Lewis's Aslan who tells Jill in The Silver Chair, "I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men...") but he does not lay down his own life. Rather than wrestle with an Aslan who has swallowed up cities and realms and who leaves Susan in London bereaved, but who also saves Narnia and dies for Edmund (who, like Susan, once traded his friendship to Narnia for something trivial), he removes the evidence that Aslan is good. An Aslan who is neither tame nor good presents an easier answer to the problem of Susan, but an Aslan who is not tame but is very good offers a better answer and one that is actually present in the text.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've liked a lot of Gaiman's work previously, but I just did not enjoy this one. The story about Susan from Narnia made some interesting points, but...it almost felt wrong that yet another man should get to tell her story. C.S. Lewis already screwed her over. And while Gaiman isn't being awful to her and raises some points about the unfairness of it all and the creepiness of Aslan and the White Witch...it felt more like someone pointing out the problem and forgetting that they should be part of the solution. 🤷‍♀️

The third story I got bored with and didn't finish. So that left the second and the final stories and neither felt particularly memorable. Obviously others will likely find enjoyment in this book, but it wasn't for me.

[Kai Charles(Fiction State Of Mind) · Rating 4 out of 5]

These gorgeously illustrated stories and poems showcase Neil Gaiman's story telling with some gifted artists. The stories have influences from The Lion Witch & The Wardrobe, ghost stories and interesting poems. A really interesting collection.

Coyer Scavenger Hunt
Read a Book With a Talking Animal- 3 pts

[Otherwyrld · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely collection of stories, enlivened by outstanding art work.

[Susan Ladan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too dark for me. The first story took a flaw in an otherwise great book, magnified it and turn it into a horrible, nightmarish tale.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am using this as a placeholder for the prose short story of The Problem of Susan.

[Siobhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This contains two short stories and two poems from Neil Gaiman, all making for quick reads.

The Problem of Susan was a two-star rating. This was an interesting idea, but it failed to wow me in the way I had hoped for. It gets you thinking, it has a rather twisted ending, but I didn’t love it in the way I had hoped I would.

October in the Chair was a three-star rating. This was a story within a story, and I really enjoyed it. It came close to being a four-star rating, but the lack of solid answers disappointed me somewhat. Nevertheless, I was hooked throughout.

Locks was a three-star rating. This was a super quick read, one I enjoyed more than anticipated. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to get from it, but it ended up packing more of a punch than I’d expected.

The Day the Saucers Came was a four-star rating. This one intrigued me throughout, and the ending wasn’t at all what I had expected it to be. Although an incredibly quick read, this one hit the right spot for me.

All in all, an entertaining collection.

[nitya · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the art overall, but some of the stories were anticlimactic. Or they just lacked something, I don't know how to describe it.

I did like the message behind "Locks" and "October in the Chair," for what it's worth.

Content warning: bestality/interspecies sex (in a dream sequence but I will include it), gore, child abuse and bullying

[Seth Skogerboe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oof… Do not read this if you’re a Narnia person. One good story out of four, and not worth the slog through the others. Gaiman seems stuck between being interested in the right things for the wrong reasons and just straight up interested in the wrong things.

[Brok3n · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are two kinds of readers...

...those who read the title The Problem of Susan and immediately know who Susan is and what the story's about, and those who remain clueless. For those in the second group, Susan is one of the four Pevensie children, the heroes of many of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.

The Narnia books are perhaps the most famous examples of portal fantasy for children. In them the Pevensie kids Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter visit a world in which there are talking animals and magical and mythological creatures. The King of the Beasts, the lion Aslan, is a barely disguised representation of the Son of the Christian Trinity. As Aslan tells Lucy at the end of the third book (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) after telling her she and Edmund won't return to Narnia,

"It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's OK. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"

"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.

"Are—are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.

"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there."

In the final book, The Last Battle, Lucy, Edmund, and Peter are sent to Narnia for the last time, never to leave again. It transpires that the three of them died in a rail accident, and this is their afterlife. You will notice that Susan's name is missing. From what Lucy, Edmund, and Peter have to say we are given to understand that Susan has fallen from grace and no longer believes in Narnia.

The Chronicles of Narnia tell us nothing of Susan's eventual fate. She was not with the other three when they died in the accident. (It is somewhat vaguely and obliquely implied in The Last Battle that she may have lost her hope of Heaven.) That is The Problem of Susan that Neil Gaiman here deals with, in graphic novel form.

Gaiman is kinder to Susan than Lewis was.

Blog review.

[Lea Patrick · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first story is the only one worth reading, and even it doesn’t explore the topic in as much depth as I would like. Dream sequences are typically lazy writing and one of the stories is just a bunch of boring adults who suck at telling stories, bickering about controlling each other’s attention. This is the most disappointing graphic novel I’ve ever read:

[Kitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

neli Gaimani lühijuttu, mida ma vist kõiki enne lugenud polnudki; aga koomiksiformaadis seekord.

nimilugu, "The Problem of Susan", oli mu jaoks kõige huvitavam, sest ka mina olen nende inimeste hulgas, kes ei suuda CS Lewisele andestada seda, kuidas Narnia-lood Susani jaoks lõppesid. Philip Pullma, JK Rowling ja kindlasti veel paljud teised on välja toonud, et ta visati paradiisist välja selle eest, et kasvas tüdrukust naiseks. aga minu meelest keegi peale Gaimani pole rääkinud seda lugu, et... kuidas sa siis edasi elad, kui Aslan su nooremad õe-vennad nii suuremeelselt taevariiki on aidanud.

olen seda novelli enne lugenud ja selle lõpp läheb üsna graafiliseks ära, mistap graafiline variant on... noh, asjakohane.

kolme karu lugu "Locks" mind eriti ei kõnetanud (ei ole minus seda karuisa), "October in the Chair" oli veidi Kalmisturaamatu-hõnguline, aga "The Day the Saucers Came" jälle täiesti väärt seda visuaalset varianti, sest teksti ju ülemäära palju polegi, aga piltidel vaadata on oh kui palju.