By the time you read this, I should hopefully be at my sister’s house teasing my nephews. Fear not loyal readers, for I have scheduled a series of posts according to my usual publishing schedule. I will also be attending the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference at the beginning of January and should have some insights to report from there.
As I was looking back at some old entries to see if there was anything I might want to link back to in my absence, I came across a post about groups trying to use graphic novels to get kids interested in great literature. In that entry, I noted that something similar had been tried with Classics Illustrated back in my parents day but had failed because there was too much content to squeeze into too few pages.
It got me to thinking, it might be possible to do a credible job by turning great works into web comics. I will confess one of my guilty pleasures is to follow a number of web comics. One I will cop to reading is posits that the world mythologies are actually based on the conflicts between humanoid aliens from another dimension, one group holding to a philosophy of authoritarian rule (Titans) vs. a more free will philosophy (Greek gods).
Because it is expected the story will unfold over the course of months or years, some of the restrictions inherent to print don’t apply. Also because people can read the comic on computers and mobile devices, distribution issues are less problematic.
There are plenty of classics like A Tale of Two Cities that will make for exciting reading without any need for embellishment. A lot of plays, operas and ballets could benefit from a comic book adaptation as well. Linking to the completed comic could serve as a study guide for a lot of organizations.
Yes, students would use the comics as a substitute for reading the book for class. But they are already watching the movie, reading synopses and buying papers as a substitute for work already. Doing a thorough job with the web comic would provide an opportunity to make people aware of the full content of the literature that they would normally avoid reading.