The Pictured Page: Literature to Comics module (CG50007)
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Credits
20
Module code
CG50007
The aim of the module is to introduce students to the relationship between literature and comics/graphic novels, particularly the ways in which works of literature have been adapted to this hybrid medium, which combines text and image in a sequential narrative form.
Students will read the original texts alongside the adaptations and consider the strategies that have been used by the comics creators to translate the text into a comic, with particular emphasis on the visual language and how it adapts narration, perspective and focalisation.
Indicative topics:
Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift), adapted by Martin Rowson
Salome (Oscar Wilde), adapted by David Shenton
Kidnapped and Jekyll and Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson), adapted by Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy, and by Lorenzo Mattotti and Jerry Kramsky
Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad), adapted byDavid Zane Mairowitz and Catherine Anyango
Short stories by Kafka, adapted by Peter Kuper, and The Trial (Franz Kafka), adapted by Chantal Montellier and David Zane Mairowitz
Various stories by H.P. Lovecraft, adapted by Gardner Fox, Bernie Wrightson, Moebius, John Coulthart, and Alan Moore
City of Glass (Paul Auster), adapted by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli
Assessment
Coursework makes up 100% of the assessment, as follows:
7 weekly journals, 250 words each (20%)
Presentation in class (20%)
Research Essay, 4,000 words (60%), due Friday Week 14
Intended learning outcomes
On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
Perform close readings of comics and graphic novels and the literature that they have been adapted from.
Show familiarity with the processes of adaptation
Show understanding of the issues raised by the process of adaptation and the scholarship and criticism related to this field
Articulate independent critical responses to these works