The graphic novel adaptation

The graphic novel is a relatively new topic of academic study and nuances of the form are still ripe for inquiry. Complex narrative and visual landscapes as seen in the work of Chris Ware and others, has elevated the formerly marginalised position of sequential art and has pushed the potentiality of the medium. My own foray into the graphic Novel has been revelatory. My graphic novel Lizard World is an adaptation from a novel by Terry Richard Bazes and he condensed his own narrative in the form of a ‘script’. I would like to present this process of adaptation as more than a re-contextualisation of the original text but a fixed interpretation. The adaptation into a form like a graphic novel or film is a consolidation of a singular interpretation of the work. This flattening of the interpretive qualities of a literary (written) work takes on a highly specific form. The graphic novel adaptation, like other adaptations, is the fulfilment of one vision of the text and this is both a limitation of the text and an exponent of the text. I would also like to explore the nature in which the graphic novel gives visual form to the narrative structure of the novel. Through repeated patterns of action and characterisation, the literary devices within the novel become writ large. Additionally, this gives symbolic references the poignancy of being realised in drawing and the impact of repeating the visual symbols at key points in the narrative. Although the singular nature of interpretation in the adaptation is evident, the stylistic qualities of the drawn line then open up several more layers of interpretation. These stylistic considerations are myriad and although they are the result of purposeful intentions, the way in which they are ‘read’ by the viewer/reader is based on the filter of that individual’s experience. Specific examples of the above points will be shown from the graphic novel (which will be published by Jack Spratt Press in Spring 2016).