Fantasy with Friends – hosted by Pages Unbound – poses questions each Monday about fantasy, either as a genre as a whole or individual works.
As I write this, I’m finally feeling better from having spent the last couple of weeks super ill. That hasn’t been fun! We’re currently at the end of October (yay – ahead in my blog posts!), so Halloween is on the horizon but I am also excitedly looking forward to November. Have you started any Christmas reading yet? I’m really hoping to make the most of the season this year and both read/watch some Christmas romances!
Fantasy with Friends:
Graphic Novel Adaptations
An increasing number of books seem to be newly adapted as graphic novels. How do you feel about this trend? Are you excited to see new adaptations? Do you think new audiences could discover the story? Are there some books that you think might be difficult to adapt in this way?
I really like when books are adapted into graphic novels, and I think it works especially well with fantasy. I’ve noticed that in some instances, it’ll be a straight adaption of a book, but in others an author might use the graphic novel format to explore other parts of their world, using it as a prequel or fleshing out smaller plotlines from the books themselves. I’m pretty happy with both!
And yes, I do get excited by graphic novels of books I love. Two examples that immediately spring to mind are the ASOIAF graphic novels and The Dark Tower graphic novels – both excellent fantasy series’, and both able to convey more than their screen counterparts. The ASOIAF graphic novels more faithfully adapt the books, sticking closer to the source material and able to showcase many elements that were changed for TV, largely because of the difficultly filming them! The Dark Tower graphic novels I’ve read fall more into the prequel category, but similarly they depict parts of Roland’s story that would be incredibly hard to depict on screen.
I feel like this is where graphic novels are strongest, and why they work so well in fantasy. Most fantasy screen adaptations won’t be able to engage with meandering plotlines or portray fantastical scenes accurately and in some cases need to alter the characters ages, but in a graphic novel, these can be rendered more faithfully without putting actors at risk, and without worrying about cost.
I think it can help introduce new audiences to established fantasy books, but I think the core audience for these are existing fans. It feels like the Game of Thrones graphic novel and TV series were developed nearly at the same time, with the first issue releasing September 2011 while the first episode came out April 2011. However, the audience for graphic novels is typically smaller than the audience for screen – a graphic novel won’t have as big an impact as a screen adaptation on gaining new fans. So yes, I think they can enable new fans to discover the story, but usually the graphic novel readers are existing fans.
I don’t think when it comes to fantasy there would be books that would be difficult to adapt as graphic novels – most fantasy books feel like they’d lend themselves well to the format, and I think it allows for more direct collaboration with the author! There might be changes required to account for the difference, but to me, most fantasy books I’ve read would work well as a graphic novel!
Do you like graphic novel adaptations? What are some of your favourites? I’d love to hear all about them!
