Graphic Sakespare: 
Understanding the Contact Zon of Shakspare Adaptation 
in Gi Nrative 
 
by
 
Robert W. Haberstroh III 
 
 
A thesi submited to the Graduate Faculty of 
Auburn Universiy 
in partial fulfilment of the 
requientsor the Dgree of 
Mtr of Arts 
 
Auburn, Alabam 
ay 14, 2010
 
 
Approved by 
 
Jeremy Downes, Chair, Profesor of English 
Anna Riehl, Aitant P
Sunny Stalr, Asrofsor ofis 
 
 
 ii 
Abstrac 
 
 This theis investigaes key features of Shakespearen graphic narratives from works 
produced by Clasicl Comics a wl as Neil Gaimn?s The Sandman comic seris.  These 
graphic narratives ha enjoyed both comrcil and critical succes, yet there a too fw 
sholarly investigaons on how these adaptations function. This theis wil estblish the contact 
zone of Shakespearen graphic narratives byinvestigang comic rhetoric, adaptation tory, and 
narratologicl reppropriation, whih wil iuminate the cplexity of these works nd how they 
can be beter understood.  The first section outlines t contact zone of Shakespearen graphic 
narrative by positoning t sourc txts with comic rhetori.  The second section outlines one 
prominent theory of adaptation to beter understand what occurs wn txts aredapted across 
genres and mediums.  The third sction outlines narratologial reppropriation, relying on close 
readings of graphic narratives. 
 
 iii 
Acknowledgmnts 
 
 
I would like to thank my family and friends for their support and their patienc over the 
course of this project.  Specifly, I would like to thank my wife for r tirels love, support, 
patinc, understanding, and too many other superlative qualits to list.  I would also like to 
thank my commite for supporting this investigaon.  Your time, coments, and 
encouragent have made this theis posible.  Thank you for this opportunity. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 iv 
Table of Contents 
 
Abstrac???????????????????????????????????ii 
knowledgements??????????????????????????????ii 
List of Figures????????????????????????????.????v 
The Rhetoric of the Comic Contact Zone: Linking Narratives Through Space, Time, and 
Subjet????????????????????????????????.1 
 
Adaptive Changes: Adapting Narratives by Palimpsest???..????????..18 
Narratological Repproprition: Where Stories, Charactrs, Authors, and Styles Collide?...38 
Works Cited???????????????????????????????...?56 
 
 v 
List of Figures 
 
Figure 1.1: McCloud (24-25)???????..?????????????.??????3 
i 1.2: The Tempest (10-11)?????.?...???????????????.???.8 
Figure 1.3: McCloud (66)????????...????????????...??????13 
i 1.4: The Tempest (65)..??????????????????..???????.15 
Figure 2.1:  Tst (11)..??????????????????..???????.25 
i 2.2: Gaimn-?Tepest? (1)?.??????????????..????????.27 
Figure 2.3: The Tst (93)..?????????????????..????????.31 
i 2.4:  Tempest (92)..?????????????????.????????..34 
Figure 3.1: Gain-?Midsummer? (77).????????????????..?????.42 
i 3.2:im-Tepest? (1)?.?????????????????????...?44 
Figure 3.3: Gain-?st (27)...????????.??????????????..46 
i 3.4:im-Tepest? (38)...????????????..??????????.48 
Figure 3.5: Sikoryak (10-11).????.??????????????..???????..50 
 
 1 
 
 
 
Rhetoric of Comic Contact Zone:  Linkig Narratives Through, Space, Time, and Subject 
 Combining words and pictures i no new art form.  From the iluminatd manuscripts of 
Chaucer, to Wilam Blke?s engravings, to Stan Le?s The Amazing Spiderman, artist have 
played with the alcial banc of imge and word to create systs of meaning.  While 
there a numerous histories of comic art (Scott McCloud devots an entire chaptr of his 
Understanding Comics to such an investigaon), such discusions, while usful for background 
research, wil not be the focus of this project.  Instead, emphasi i placd on understanding the 
graphic adaptation?t move from a primarily verbal narrative medium to graphic narrative?as 
current audiencs experienc the genre.  More to the point, this sction wil strive to outline how 
audiencs read graphic narratives, explain the contact zone that one may use to beter understand 
graphic narrative, and to positon Shakesperen graphi narrative adapttions within the comic 
contat zone.   
 While the history of the comic book is not wihin the scope of this project, some 
background information is necesary in order to appropriately positon the genre. What current 
readers know as comics began in the lte 19
th
 century and gained momentum through the 20
th
 
century (McCloud 18). Yet, as t mdium approached t end of the 20
th
 cntury and t 
beginning of the next, a shift occurred in the way reders approach t medium: ?comi books? 
gan to lengtn into ?graphi novels,? crtoonist were beoming authors or artist (and the 
brand new titl ?graphic novelist? was relized), and suddenly a medium that had been vilifed 
for an apparent rise in youth delinquency and decrease in literacy was becoming acptd as 
 
 2 
valuable taching aids and a literary genre.  Not only was thi ?new? genre aceptd, but valued 
by thers and librarians as valuable tool that engaged ne readers with other txts (Versaci 
182-183). This elicts the question: why?  Why had atiudes towrd comics shifted from one 
extreme to the otr? 
 Asuredly, there is no single reason that one may plce a finger on, for boiling down such 
controversy to a singular emphatic point would chepen argumnts that raged for decades.  
Perhaps it was a rie in other graphi, particpatory media (such as video games, whih 
recived?and continues to receive?simlar criticsm from their moral opponents).  Perhaps, 
this change arise from the critial rit authors like Art Spiegelman (author of the criticaly 
acclaimed, Pulitzr Prize winning Holocaust memoir Maus) and Nil Gian (author of the 
World Fantsy Award wing seris Sandman) give their works.  Certinly the comics that are 
being produced today have ner, in the history of t medium, taken this form.  Our 
contemporary comics are plyful, reflexive, and invit both srious and whimsical redings.  
MCloud uses the ci medium to delop such efects. In Figure 1.1 we s MCloud 
explaining how audiencs read and experienc comi artnd language: 
 
 3 
 
 4 
Figure1.1 McCloud 24-25 
 
 5 
Acording to McCloud?s discusion of, ?The Treachery of Images,? comics alow the reader to 
flit bewen the suspension of disbelief and self-wrenes of reding, culminatng in his final 
joke ?Do you hear what I?m saying??  Readers of course hear/red the mesage that McCloud is 
presenting.  One cn look t the sme ?paintng? of a pipe and it is both a singulr reproduction 
of a pipe and ten reproductions of t pipe, none of which are the original (one could say that 
McCloud has, himslf, adapted Margite?s paintng to fit his own purpose).  Yt reders ctively 
partite in this syste of mning creation?charging into the txt with reckles abandon, 
suspending al disbelif?only to have the author reflect t medium bak to the reader.  
 Perhaps the best question to pose is: how did thedi arrive at this reflective, playful 
point?  In many wys, Mary Louis Prat?s notion of  ?contat zones? helps to contxtualize such 
a phenomenon.  In her clsic artile, ?Arts of the Contt Z,? Prat defines the term so as ?to 
refer to social spaces where cultures mt, clash, and grapple with each otr, oftn in contexts 
of highly asymmtrial retions of power?? (501).  When reders red graphic narratives, not 
only are they experiencing a literary genre, but they are also tapping into the contat zones that 
give context to thos narratives.  In her article, Prat extensively refers to a letr addresed to 
King Philip III of Spain, The First New Chronil and Good Govrnmnt, writn by a 17
th
 
century Incan mn named Guaan Poma.  What isnteresting about Poma?s letr is that is a 
sprawling telve hundred page document consistng of around eight hundred pages of text and 
another four hundres of line drawings with captions (500).  Prat further explains that: 
In writing a ?new chronicle,? Guaman Pom took over the offical Spanish genre for his 
own ends.  Those ends wre, roughly, to construct a new piture of the world, a picture of 
a Christian world with Andean?peoples at the centr.?Guaman Poma begins by 
 
 6 
rewriting the Christian history of the world from Adam and Eve [?], incorporating the 
Amerindians into it as offpring of one of the sons of Noah. (501) 
Prat?s exapl isportant for this investigaon for two reasons: Guaman Poma?s chosen form 
for his letr was that of graphic narrative, and, in creating this narrative, P ws adapting 
storis from diferent cultures to prove his point.  Perhaps even more important is that the image 
Poma employs?ost notably the adaptation of the Judeo-Christian Genesi story?stil retin 
the visual rhetoric of Incn art.  In one imge, 
Adam is depited on the left-hand side below the sun, while Eve is on the right-hand side 
below the moon, and slightly lower than Adam.  T two are divided by t diagonal of 
Adam?s digging stick.  In Andean spatial symbolis, the diagonal descending from the 
sun marks the basi lne of power and authority dividing upper from lowr, male f 
feml, dominant from subordinat. (Prat 505) 
Here, readers se Poma?s culture reflectd through the visual rhetoric of his drawing.  There is an 
obvious delineation of power being moved traditional symbols (sun to moon, and t 
line created by the digging stick) to show that, in his culture, men are more closely related to the 
dominant group while women are depicted in a symbolicaly subordinate rol.  Whil ts may 
be offputting to contmporary audincs, it greatly aids Prat in establishing Poma?s work as a 
place where social spaces and cultures clah; here one can argue that i is the Incn and Christian 
ultures meting with Poma?s own interpretions of culture, l of which add further friction to 
the contact zone.  
 While my next section wil go into further detail on how adaptations work in graphic 
narrative, it ismportant to note that Poma engages in one of the most iportant moves of 
adapttion theory: adapttion involves efcemnt of a known narrative.  It ismportant to note 
 
 7 
tha this proces of efacemnt does not elimnate the ?knowability? of a singular text.   Instead, 
as Linda Hutcheon points out, ?each adaptd txt is directly and openly connectd to other 
works, and that connection is part of their formal identity, but also of whate might cal tir 
hermeneutic identity? (21).  Here, w se that Pom is reworking the Christian tory of Adam 
and Eve as wel as other cntral Judeo-Christian figures (such as Noah), to give these stories 
Anden roots.  While information on how Pom my have continued to efface thos sourc txts 
is not readily availabl in Prat?s article, it is expresly staed that Adam and Eve ha at least 
received a geographicl makeover, plaing them in Pom?s culture rather than tt of his 
European oppresors.  Obviously, Pom?s letr does not elimnate t prior texts that he is using 
to crete his argument; however, it is appropriat to atept to intrpret the work through the 
works that Poma is efacing in order to crete his txt.  Because of audienc?s prior knowledge of 
the Bible, w areble to understand his txt within the contxt of the works that he is adapting.  
By efacing thes biblical stories, Poma has created a space that alows for his interpretaion of a 
Judeo-Christian Anden culture to tke shape.   
 Turning to the graphic narrative adaptation of Wilam Shakespeare?s The Tempest 
(provided by t publisr Clasil Comics) a our contct zone, numerous points of contact?
those placs where Prat?s socil spaes and cultures touch?beom apparent.  The zones of 
adapttion studies, Shakespeare studis, comic rhetoric, and postmodern thought fit not-sonicely 
together. Whil thes various literary spaes coales to create a singular text, the interpretaion 
of said text relies on t complxity of the contxt in which it is plcd, t contact zone in 
which the txt is embroiled. Turning to graphic novelizaton of The empest, the socio-ultural 
spaes that create the contact zone become more apparent in t way t txt is drafted, how the 
action is portrayed, and t depitions of the characters. 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 
Figure 1.2 The Tempest 10-11 
 
 10 
 In Figure 1.2, readers are given the Clasicl Comics rendition of Act One, Scene O of 
the play.  The first thing rers notice are t swooped, wave-like panels that are employed.  
Simlrly, tre a large gaps, or to borrow a term from McCloud, ?gutter spaces,? betwen the 
fraes (66).  Why would the artist use such tchniques, epeialy when one considers that tse 
swooped, thickly guttered frams never appear again in the adapted work?  To further complicat 
reading the narrative?s opening, the iges and words bled over one another, so that one frame 
is connected to another through an overly streched word baloon or t Boatswain?s belaying 
pin. The txt preserve Shakespeare?s language, layering Elizbethan phrasing on top of this 21
st
 
century publicaton.  In these two pages the complexity of the text becomes more apparent, and, 
much as we sw in t Poma txt that Prat examined in her artil, there is a rhetorical purpose 
for the construction of these imges.  
 To met tse obsrvations, one can redily imagine the swooped, wave-like panels are 
meant to echo the action of the scene.  Prospero has conjured t storm to wreck the ship, and the 
panels mimic both t waves of t ocan and the ship?s sails.  Such a devie helps to lure t 
reader in and imeditly distnces thi work from a more traditional graphic narrative, which 
would rely on the more traditional rectangulr/square panels placed lft-toright. Since there a 
no panels moving from left to right, the reder navigates the page in a descending manner 
(reading from the top of the page to t bottom) echoing t ship?s desnt io the ocen.   
Simlrly, t flaring and tapering of these panels alows the artist to carry colors and action from 
frae to frae?or even page to page, like t bluish hues used to ilustre the sky and sea?
which can cret a strong sens of cohesivenes or can juxtapos difring images to cret 
disontinuity.  Finaly, the blding over of imges and word baloons helps to push the reader 
through the text, linking frames together in order to keep the action of the scene at rapid pace. 
 
 11 
 It isn the compositon of these frames that the astute reader is able to gain critical 
purchase.  Tse guttr spaces betwn t panels creat a gestl?individual parts that mke up 
a complt image?tha, in other words, alows for what Scott McCloud terms a ?closure.?  
Here, closure is the ?phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole? (63).  
Refrring back to Figure 1.2, readers experince closure by obsrving that t action takes place 
on a boat even though the entire vesel i not depictd in any of the panels.  It would not rely 
make sens if one imagined that the Boatswain only exist on t stern of the boat and that 
Alonso is only confid to t boat?s deck and cbin?with no fredom to exist in any other 
place until its drafted on the page.  Instead, reders subconsciously connect the panels, pages, 
nd gesture together, creating a compltd, cohesive spae for the charaters to inhabit.  
Simlarly, in t first panel of Figure 1.2, we only get images of t Shipmastr and Boatswain 
from the wist or shoulders up.  Readers have no ide whetr the two individuals have legs, but 
we asume that these characters have legs, for they are capable of movement?changing positon 
from one panel to t next, en though tre is no actual movent on the page.  Here the 
reader must spend disbelief and alow for the rhetori of the work to move t reader from 
panel to panel, instilng movemnt action into the staic images on the page.  It is thi cal 
for reader particpation and textual negotiaton that alows for reflection; t reader must 
understnd the moves of maning cretion in order to interpret the compositon of the text in any 
meaningful way. 
 It is at this point the reader?consiously or not?confronts postmodernis.  As 
previously mentioned, t genre of comiplacing words concurrently with iages?i no new 
medium.  That said, what most readers are fmilr with as ?comi book? or ?graphic novel? is 
alost entirely a postmodern invention. The mutability of subjet, time, and spaeal common 
 
 12 
features in the genre prior to and concurrent with the selction of graphic novels shown here?
re key features of the graphic narrative genre.  It is not out of place for the narrative of a graphic 
narrative to jump around through space and time. (Indeed, the point could be argued that super-
hero comics stem from such flexibl physis; who is more capable of traversing large spaces or 
stopping and speding up tim than Superman, after al?)  McCloud points out that in comis 
time and space beome, practialy, the sm thing (100).  If a panel is longer, with more 
charatrs talking and partipating in t portrayed action, then readers are more likely to think 
of time slowing down?alowing for al those depited ations and conversations to ta plce.  
This, of course, difrs from a seris of short panels that depict a super-hero fighting a vilin. In 
one panel the super-hero may punch the vilain (most likely punctuaed with the streotypical 
onomatopoetic ?Bam? or ?Pow?) and perhaps over the sequential panels the two combatnts 
return blows.  Here, because the action gets broken up, readers are more likely to asume that 
each panel is only presnting a short, smal space of time.  It does not ta nearly as long for 
reders to negotiate numerous sal panels with fw actions or words in them rather than a 
singular lrge panel with num actions or long dialogues.  In many wys, it is t amount of 
time that i tkes the reader to negotiate thes panels that helps to crete the efect of tie 
speding up or slowing down.  Whil ts can be simulated in text?longer or shortr sntnc 
constructions can be efectively used to speed up or slow down action as the author ses fit?the 
losure that one crets moving betwn panels i unique to the graphi narrative.   
 
 
 13 
 
Figure 1.3 McCloud 66 
 Figure 1.3 exemplifes thi phenomenon that, as McCloud staes, i at the heart of comics.  
Readers se the panel with the ax-wielding vilain, and are then given the cityscpe panel with 
the screm.  Tse are two images that, smingly, have nothing to do with eah other?excpt 
 
 14 
tha they were presentd sequentialy.  However, by percieving them in sequence readers now 
construct a narrative of the scred mn being brutaly butcred by t ax-wilding vilin, with 
the vitim?s screa echoing through the night-shrouded city.  McCloud?s point is plain: the 
narrative that the reder is crafting is not expresly depicted on the page. There is an insinuation 
of violenc, but tre is no definitvely penned narrative to cck our asumptions agait.  In 
fact, reders cannot even atribute the scream that piercs the night (and there is no real cue that 
it is a srem?just the jagged, cresndoed letring) to t previously depicted characters.  The 
supposed narrative is firly subjective; its not the artist who is entirely creating the story 
betwn thes two panels, but the reader?endowed with active particpation?tha forms the 
story and atributes emotion and narrative to the images.  MCloud purposefully provides very 
lite information (the five words in panel one only help to set up the persona of aggresor and 
victim), but t information that is provided is enough to compel readers to ?draft? a violent 
deise for the victim. 
  
 
 15 
 
Figure 1.4, The Tempest p. 65 
 
 16 
 One can red the panels preentd in Figure 1.4 in a simlar rhetorical fshion in order to 
aid reders in creting meaning out of juxtaposed images.  Figure 1.4 gives us the beginning of 
Act II, Scene II in which Caliban is lmenting his lot in life and his subordination to Prospero.  
In thes fw pals, a lot of information is given to readers to navigate.  First, we s that 
Caliban is capable of having an inner dilogue with himself about his situaion in lif.  While the 
language has not changed betwen Shakespeare?s play and the graphic narrative adaption, what 
has cnged is the way the information is preentd.  Caliban?s thoughts are gin shape in both 
text (occupying t thought bubble) and image (occupying Calin?s ?thought metaphor,? the 
image ebedded in the first panel).  Siply looking at the top panel, the reader must negotiate 
two is.  T primary action of the panel is given to Caliban in contempltion, but the othr 
image?tha ?thought metphor??directly corresponds tlin?s thoughts.  T mechanis of 
the thought-action that the panel present, while smingly obvious, is a feature readersust 
negotite.  More to t point, it is a fature that exeplifes th contact zone tha is creted when 
authors adapt. 
 Those fatures of the first panel in Figure 1.4 require two key, rhetorical moves from the 
reader: negotitng t language of Shakespeare?s play, and negotiatng the rhetori of graphic 
narratives.  It would be esy for readers unversed in both of these ares, to make fulty readings 
of the page?perhaps reading the panels squentialy, with t inst imge ?following? the first 
panel in order to crete a narrative thread betwen the two.  This would be an incorrect reading 
of the images.  Instad, the artist ha mde a number of smal moves to help readers negotite the 
panels.  First, Caliban is drawn as if he were dep in thought, his hand scrathing his beard and 
his eye up-turned looking at both the sky and, because of their plaemnt, his thoughts.  
Coupled with the lack of any otr actions beside his thoughts, reders can asume that 
 
 17 
?Caliban is thinking? is the central action of the panel.  As readers move to the embedded 
image?the ?thought mtaphor??the artist, again, has helped rers; both t contours and the 
color of t image do not fit wh t otr panels on this page. The choice of spia tones and t 
wavy, cloud like contours of the image suggest to readers that this i a thought insted of the next 
imge in the story.  However, this doe nothing to help rers understand that this i a 
etaphor, for one must be abl to negotiate the language of Shakespere?s play and be able to 
corretly identify both the objects of Caliban?s thoughts (readers wil understnd that Prospero is 
the subject of Caliban?s thoughts even though he is graphicly absent) as wel as wt those 
objts are doing.  The apes, adders, and hedgehogs arel given represntations in the 
metaphorical imge, and, if one pays close atntion to the text of Caliban?s thoughts, one ses 
tha the key fetures of the image are given a boldface sript.  Again, the artist i making every 
efort to help readers estblish the ?corret? connetion betwen tse two imges, but such 
connetion is much more easily if the audienc has som degre of prior knowledge of 
both The Tempest, or at least some understanding of how to read Elizabethan English, and the 
rhetoric of graphic narrative.  It is thi plce where t graphic narrtive and the Shakespearin 
work met, through adaptation, that the contat zone beomes apparent. 
 Having established contct zones and how they appear in graphic adaptations of 
narratives, one cn focus on understanding how moving a narrative betwen txts and mediums 
function.    The rhetoric of comics wil prove to be an invaluable mthod of unpacking and 
understanding what nges in the proces of adapting a work, even if the language of the source 
text is preerved. 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 
 
Adaptive Changes: Adapting Naratives by Palimpset 
 Virginia Woolf, explining her views towards adapting works of literaure to cinema, 
stae her positon plinly: ?[s]o we lurch and lumber through the most famous novels of the 
world.  So we spel them out in words of one syllable writen, too, in the scrawl of an ilitera 
schoolboy? (Woolf, 309).  Her atiude towrds adapttions is one that is commonly shared by 
those who would be protctive of the literary canon: apting literaure to a new form?
specialy a visual medium such as tlvision, film, or comic?is at best unnecesary and at 
worst a reductiveaneuver that denigrates the text.  What Woolf and many others fil to realize 
is that adaptation is an integral part of t creation of narrativeregardles of medium.  Whil 
she certinly would not have ben imagining the works of Shakespeare being adaptd to a comic, 
adapttion occurs whener a work is reproduced.  For instance,  number of years ago I saw a 
production of Macbeth in which the actor playing Banquo misd his cue and did not apper in 
the scene in which Macth first confronts nquo?s ghost.  Macbeth went on to give his line as 
 should, just addresing them to an epty seat.  As an audienc mmr, I thought that this 
was an intriguing directorial move, playing up Mcbeth?s possibl insanity.  After the play, in a 
question and answer ssion, the actor discused that throughout the entire run of Mcbeth, he 
had never misd that cue.   It would be easy to dismi this viewing of Macbeth asn aident, 
an unfortunate mistep by an otherwise ditraced ator, but instad audienc memrs (myself 
included) had already tken t bait and drawn the conclusion that, in this performance of the 
play, there had been a deliberate change to create a distincly unique perf. Hre it would 
 
 19 
sem that an adaptation (perhaps in the most limted snse of the word) of the text had occurred 
betwn performnces by the same group of actors.  Recounting a mised cue in a Shakespeare 
play my prove to be a mildly humorous story, but what i shows i that even betwen 
performnces, Shakespeare?s plays could undergo some degree of adaptation (n if its a 
minor as the ?adapttion? that I witnesed.)  
 To explore and guide this investigaon into adaptation theory, we must first understand 
how adaptation functions.  Linda Hutcheon offers a wel-rounded tory of adaptation, which 
wil be the basi for this section.  Huton?sork, A Theory of Adaptation, is wel citd by 
Early Modern scholars such as Margaret Kidnie who staes that, ?Hutcheon?s theoretical 
persctive resonates with priorities expresd in?recnt studies of adaptation? (Kidnie, 4).  
While Kidnie?sork only focuss on stage adaptations of Shakespere plys, her endorsmnt of
Adaptation stablishe Hutcheon asn authority who is useful, at least in part, to Early Modern 
scholrs interestd in adaptations.  The scope of Adaptation is quit broad, focusing on stage 
adapttions (most prominently, opera, whih Hutcheon has writen extnsively on), video game 
ptti, theme park rides, and, of course, tlvision and film adaptations.  While she uss 
Shakespeare for a number of examples, she does not expresly lit herself to the Bard, with 
numerous examples ranging from T Godfatr (both novel and video gam) to Harry Potter 
(both novls and upcoming theme park).  I have chosen to stick closely to utcheon?s 
understanding of adaptation becaus her work, whil encompasing a diverse range of texts and 
medi, never expresly dises graphic narrative.  In many wys, this sction is mant to 
supplent her text, applying the observations she mkes about adaptation n general to the 
media she neglcts.  This section wil apply many of Hutcheon?s ides to graphic Shakespeare 
 
 20 
adapttions and further establish how the proces of adaptation functions within the context of 
the contact zone of graphic narrative adaptation. 
To begin this investigaon of aptation, the basic principles for adaptation should be set 
forth.  First, adaptation is a two-part concept, which implies both a product and a proces (8).  
This doubling of mening shapes how the artist (and the audince) frames the adaptd work.  
Next, audiencsust understand t variations betwen adaptations wn works aredapted 
across difrent medium (8).   As we have sen, the rhetoric of graphic narrative is draticaly 
diferent from thos rhetorics of stage or scren.  Lastly, one must wonder?surely as Woolf 
herslf must have?why such importnce, and historicl precedent, is placed on adaptation, or to 
put itore succinctly, why do we kep adapting (and readapting) works? Apttions of literary 
works hasd a very long, very wl established discusion by theorist (such as Hutcheon), 
riters (such as Woolf), and consumers of adaptations (such as t audienc for Tim Burton?s 
Alic in Wonderland movie).   
 s staed erlir, adaptation is both a proces of creation and a final product delivered 
from that procs.  Hutcheon best decribes adaptation in three esy to follow bullet points 
(emphasi Hutcheon?s): 
- An aknowledged transpositon of a recognizable other work or works 
-  creative and an interpretive act of approprition/salvaging 
- An extended intrtxtual engagement with the adapted work (8). 
Adaptation, then, sms like a fairly straight-forward procs (and product): i must be a 
recognizble shift from one work to another retining that doubled maning of product and 
proces, and that the adapted work, in some fashion, commnts on the work it derives itelf from. 
Again, this elicts t question of how adapttions of literaure acomplish these decriptions.  
 
 21 
Hutcheon quotes the Scottish poet Michael Axander in her book, crediting him for the claim 
tha adaptations are inherently ?palimpsstuous? (6).  What Alexander is encapsulting with his 
neologism i that any adaptation is going to have some degre of refrentil dilogue with the 
original work, meaning that he daption and the sourc txt are inextricably connected to one 
another, with the adaption commenting on t original work while the original informs the 
?new? adapted txt.  Aptations fac the source txt in order to create a space for variations 
from that txt to flourish.  As w mentioned in sction one, adapting a txt does not elimnate 
the source tt the text is being adaptd from.  Instead, audiencs areble to interpret thes 
adaptd txts by placing them in relation to the works that they are adaptd from?those source 
texts.  Hutcheon proposes a continuum model of adaptation, because ?[a] continuum model has 
the advantage offring a way to think about various responss to a prior story; it positons 
adapttions specifaly as (re-) interpretaions and (re-) creations? (172).  If we can imgine that 
n original or source txt is placd at one end, and then every adptation of that source txt is 
laid alongside it (with some adapttions overlapping one another, or even overlapping portions of 
tha source txt), we could creat an image that best represent how adapttions works.  Authors 
adapting txts are not laying new versions on top of earlir ones, obscuring previous sources that 
helped to create that adapttion.  Instead, if they are lid out alongside one another, in this 
metaphoricl continuum, then it becoms eier to se how they may fit in relation to one 
nother, with eah adaptation plaed on this continuum being informed by those adaptations that 
came before it. 
 To provide examples of how this phenomenon works in the investigaon at hand, one 
could turn to both the Clasicl Comics adaptation of Tmpest and t Neil Gaimn Sandman 
omi ?Tempest? to se such palimpsestuous occurrences.  However, it isportnt to note that, 
 
 22 
while both works eface and, to some degree or another, reimagine the original Tempest, they 
sm to acomplish very difrent divrgent trminal goals.  To begin, t Clasicl Comics 
adapttion appears to be what one could cal a direct adaptation: the Shakesperin language is 
intct, the narrative ner deviates from the original, and, by al appearances, the goal of the 
work is to reproduce the ply in its entirety. T front cover of the text sts a much: ?THE 
ENTIRE SHAKESPRE PLAY AS GRAPHIC NOVEL!? appears opposite the publisher?s 
logo (and set off from the black cover in orange, so as to draw even more atntion to t 
adapttion?s goal). (It ismportnt to note, however, that this investigaon is only using the 
?Original Text? version of Tepest raher than the ?Plain Text? or ?Quick Text? versions also 
published by Clasicl Comics, which modernize and simplify the language instad of preserving 
t Elizabethan English.)  What is surprising is how closely this ?Original Text? version sticks to 
the authoritive text.  Upon crosscheking with widely circulated versions of the T Tempest?
most notably the Arden edition as wel as the version anthologizd by Longman in tir 
Anthology of World Literaure, Clasicl Comics doe not appear to remove, abridge, or, in any 
other way, disrupt the recived narrative.  Senes, characters, and monologues are faithfully 
reproduced to preserve t text in its entirety.   
This would appear to kep in line with what Hutcheon discuses in her chapter on ?How? 
one adapts literaure, especily when t ones adapting t literaure are doing so with an eye 
towards an audinc of students and teachers: 
[a]daptations of [texts], howver, are often considered educationaly important for 
children?The new film adaptation of C.S. Lwis? The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, 
the Witch, and t Wardrobe is acompanied by elaborate tahing aids, from leson 
plans to Web-based packages to materil for aftr-school clubs.  Today hardly a book or a 
 
 23 
movie aid at school-aged children does not have its own Web sit, complet with 
advic and materils for techers. (Hutcheon, 118) 
One quik look at the Clsical Comis Tempest onfirms Hutcheon?s observation that 
adapttion can occur for eductional purposs. It i easy to find tir Wb addres blazoned onto 
the cover of the work and appering numerous times in the first few pages.  Fitng with 
Hutcon?s observation, the publisher?s wbsit is briing with information for teachers and 
students, from helpful hints on understanding the plays, to black and white imges from 
adapttions tha the publisher is currently working on that sudents can color in (one would 
sume tt this i to prime students for clasicl taes tt they cn understand beter, while 
priming parents? pocketbooks for next gret eduction aid).   On t surfce, it would sm that 
such a leaning towards adaptation as an eational tool?with prominenc plad on 
reproduction of the ?original text,? just in a diferent formould disrupt clims that adaptation 
is an act of efacemnt and reimagining.  This, of course, cd not be further from the truth, for 
an ?eductional? adaption stil must revise the txt for a purpose?ven if that purpose is clarity 
or concisnes.  Surely the goal of helping students beter understand the play, whil ludable, 
necesarily informs t proces by which this adaptation is crafted: why else would there be 
xtra atntion to biographical information and even more atntion to creating characters that are 
stylized and unique (certinly, one cnnot confuse Caliban for any humn cratr, just as 
Prospero?with his multicolor dream cloak?stands apart from the rest of the ?human? 
charaters)?    
 Reproduced here a the Boatswain?s lines from Act 1, Scene 1 of the play as it appears 
in the Longman Anthology of World Literaure. In this sene, Prospero?s storm is about to 
 
 24 
destroy the ship carrying his brother, and Gonzalo has reminded the Boatswain who, exactly, his 
pasengers are.  His reponse is: 
None that I more love than myself.  You are a councilor; if you can command these 
elmnts to silenc and work the peace of the present, w wil not hand a rope more.  Us 
your authority.  If you cannot give thanks you have lid so long and make yourself 
ready in your cabin for the miscnce of the hour, if it so hap.?Cheerly, good hearts!?
Out of our wy, I sy. (1.1.17-22).   
 
 25 
 
Figure 2.1 Tempest pg. 11 
As we can se, in Figure 2.1, the Boatswain?s lines do not change in content.  They do, however, 
get ?broken up? across t action of the page; they move betwen panels and alow for the 
 
 26 
graphical representation of other characters ?acting? through the Boatswain?s line.  The action 
of the sene is not lost, and, if anything, heightens.  Audiencs areble to perceive t tumult of 
t sc whereas just reading the play (adaptd to an anthology, for instanc) much of that 
ation may be obscured.  Again, one must sk the question of where this adapttion belongs on 
the continuum of Tempest adaptations and wtr this adaptation is coming from a performance 
of t play or from a folio, ?textual? version of the play.  One could argue that the Clasicl 
Comics adapttion atempts to capture the play as it would be performed, alowing for a spae 
where characters? lines cn be broken up by actors moving in spac.  The decison, on the part of 
t artist, writr, and publisher, to have the text portray charaters in this way?while 
commitng to an extremely cose, precis presrvation of the workgives exampl of how, as 
an adaptive maneuver, palipsst can be employed in graphic narrati; audiencs areble to 
?se? the work graphicaly ?performed? on the pages, but there is stil an overarching goal 
towards educating the audienc that is being deftly handld. 
 As one cn imagine, the goal of Gaimn?s ?Tepest? sems to not entirely coincide with 
education (perhaps there is a move towrds educating audincs about the author Wilam 
Shakespere, but tre is litle efort made trds having students become betr educted about 
the text).  Hutcheon points out that ?[t]hemes are perhaps the easiet sory elmnts to s as 
adaptbl aross media and even genres or fraing contexts,? (10) and that certainly sems to 
hold true for Gaimn?s adaptation of Tempest.  Here, there a number of narrative structures at 
work: the ?biographical? story of Shakesare writing Tempest, the ?biographical? story of 
Shakespeare?s last few yers before his deth, the fantstical story of Shakespere?s deal with 
Drem, Dre?s wrines of the world and his deire for an end, and, of course, the story of 
Prospero and his iland.   
 
 27 
 
Figure 2.2 Gaimn ?The Tempest? pg. 1 
 As Figure 2.2 shows, the text of the ply runs paral to the otr stories.  While the 
opening lines and stage directions have acurately preserved t Elizabethan language, 
 
 28 
Shakespeare?s story (and language) flits in and out of Gaimn?s narrative, with Shakespeare and 
his fmily becoming the primry focus of this iue and the Elizabethan language only being 
presentd in the panels that deal directly with Shakespeare?s Tempest. The reder is preentd 
only with snippets of the source txt, diferentiatng the work from that of t Clasicl Comics 
adapttion.  However, Gaiman?s handling of th source txt preserve the tmes of a man lost 
on his own island whose pursuits of the arcane arts lad him towards alienation, and he, 
eventualy, must give up such powers.  In t concluding pages of Giman?s ?Tepest,? Dream 
choes the tmes of the sourc txt, the Sandman seris, and this iue in particular, when he 
explains that he wantd ?a tle of graceful ends.  [H] wanted a play about a King who drowns 
his books, and breks hi stf, and laves hi kingdom.  About a mgician who becomes a man.  
About a man who turns his back on mgic? (Gaimn 35).  These are the tmes that ge 
transferred betwen the two works; Drea, Shakespeare, and Prospero al want to be men who 
turn their backs on magic and shake off their lves of privilege and responsibilty. 
Furtr investigaon into the nuances of what Gaimn acomplishe wil continue in 
section three, but its sufficent to not that thes diferencs in how t source txt is 
approahed by two difrent groups of artist, for two very diferent ends, stil functions with key 
simlrities in the ways these adaptations happen.  Both adaptd txts take libertiesith the 
sourc txt alowing for otr apttions to occur through the efcemnt of the sourc text.  
This i palimpsest a work; the source txt has to be redrafted so that Gain can discus the 
interplay betwn Shakespeare, T Tmpest, and his own cracter, Drem.  Through 
palimpsst, the audienc is able to place Tst a wel as the various adaptations of the work 
on that metaphorical continuum and s how each work is informed by previous adaptations and 
continues to inform future ones. The original work is stil very much intact?hose snippets that 
 
 29 
run parale to the ?new? text Gaimn has created give form to what isnforming his 
adapttion?but t ?mat of the story has ben changed to fit Gaimn?s own narratological 
goals. 
 Adaptation is a narratological phenomenon that is not bound by any singular medium or 
source.  Apttions of novels to films, fils to videogames, and videogames to novels al 
abound at any large-scale mdiaerchant.  Certainly there any number of particulars that 
one could addres when disusing adaptations betwen mdiums and what has changed or 
remained the same.  For t purposes of this investigaon, we wil look primarily at the 
charaters both of Shakespeare?s play and the various adaptationsithin the scope of this 
projt.  By focusing on the characters, w observe that hey, for the most part, remain stic 
betwen the texts (Prospero is stil very much like every otr rendition of Prospero).  Yet, what 
any adaptive artist must negotiate, specifaly when crafting his characters, is the psychological 
whereithal tt he charactrs of thes works posse, that spark of thought and inner-working 
tha makes cracters wl-rounded and believabl.   
Certinly it is eaier to empathiz with and understand a character who appears in  novel 
narrated in first-person rather than a big-budget movie.  Suffice to say tt, in cinem, there a 
very limtd number of tools artits can use to encourage audinc members to epathize with a 
specif character such as voice-over, music, and cinematography.  Hutcheon makes the point 
tha ?[i]n the move from tling to showing, a performnce adaptation must dramtize: 
description, narration and representd thoughts must be transcoded into speech, ations, sounds, 
and visual images? (40).  Adaptrs must be able to portray the ideas cntral to the original work 
in wys that are most appropriate for thedium the adapter is moving t work to.  Hutcheon 
goes to great lengths to estblish how one may apt a txt to a performance space (such as 
 
 30 
theatre or opera) and how, mainly though music, characters? inner emotions and thoughts are 
portrayed (41).  Yet, throughout her observations on how adaptations rely on external features ?
such as music or the voice-over, which are not usualy part of the imediat actionto enrich an 
adapttion, s continues to disus numerous mediums while excluding graphi narrative.  
While graphic narratives are not the focus of her work, one may wonder why she would neglect a 
mdium that problematizes her observations. For, graphic narrative fits within a limnal spa 
betwen traditional txt and solly visual representation.   
 In portraying those inner thoughts and emotions of characters, graphic narrative, as a 
medium, present a fw key rhetorical moves, some of whih wre disused in the previous 
sction, that alow for readers to perceive the inner-worlds of the charactrs.  As dicussed in 
setion one, the use of the thought bubbl (and other, simlar thought-bubble-like tools such as 
Caliban?s ?thought mtaphor?) alows for readers to ?se? the ts of a character, which 
imbues said character with an interiority that is otherwis dificult to portray.  In Figure 2.3, we 
have an excerpt from the Clasicl Comics Tempest that provides a good example of what, in 
other mdiums, would have been clasifd as thos external features; here, in the graphic 
adaption, they are constructd into the narrative.  Aftr Aril has tken the guise of t harpy, he 
nd Prospero are portrayed as etreal on-lookers watching the reactions of Gonzalo and Alonso.  
This page gives us two interesting examples of how graphi narrative filtes the imersion of 
the reader into the story and alows the reader to understand the inner thoughts of t charactrs: 
t thought bubble and the graphic depition of sound. 
 
 31 
 
Figure 2.3 Tempest pg. 93 
 
 32 
 In Figure 2.3, readers gain insight to Prospero?s thoughts?pecifaly those thoughts on 
his powers and charms.  While ts may sem like just another example of a common fature of 
graphic narrative, it ismportant to look more closely at t contxt in which this thought-
bubbled speech arise.  Indeed, when crosscheking Prospero?s speeh as preentd in the 
graphic narrative versus that sam speeh in t Longman nthologizd edition of t play, one 
noties that a shift in the portrayal of the language has occurred: from spoken line to internal 
thought.  While t lines are preserved in tir entirety?there has been no abridgmnt or other 
editorial reduction made to the txt?this sft in how t lines are presntd greatly changes the 
wy reders connect to both t text and the character.  Hre, Prospero is preentd as a ubject, 
capable of inner thoughts and motives, which are not readily reatble in other primarily visual 
mdiums.   
Unaided by external markers of an inner-self (no music, voie-over, or other such 
indicator), Prospero, much like Caliban as w saw in sction one, has?on pagebecome a 
harater with fully-formed thoughts and motivatons, none of which were added to the txt.  
Instad, the adapter blnds together what would have been performd lines of speech with t 
conventions of comic writing.  T lines, a they appear in the play, are in no way presnted as 
an aside or other form of ?private? speech; t adapter took what would have been audibl to 
both the audienc and the otr charatrs and fashioned it, in this adaptation, as an internal 
musing.  Certainly, wn performed, his line are probably not ment to be herd by the otr 
charaters on stge and are instad directed to the audienc, but the adapter goes to great lengths 
to ?privil? Prospero?s speech, mking sure to difrentiat what could be sn as dilogue or 
monologue, and instead rest he speech as inner thought.  By using the thought-bubble and 
preserving the original lnguage, t work straddles the dificult line of verbal and visual txts; 
 
 33 
audiencs areble to negotiate the txt and its characters like a verbal, or other novelized, 
narrative?being abl to understnd and empathiz with the characters?while aso having a 
visual identity to afix to those charactrs. 
 Lastly, it ismportant to not tt the external markers of internal thoughtspecifaly 
sound and music?are not alien to the graphic narrative.  Inded, the mdium is rich in auditory 
experiencs; however, thos auditory experiencs are presentd visualy. The top panel of Figure 
2.3 shows two imps carrying the table, tha the fast w presnted, away.  T stage directions 
for this scene, the one depicted in Figure 2.3, are sted as follows: ?[Ariel] vanishe in thunder; 
then, to soft music, entr the shapes again, and danc, with mocks and mows, and carrying out 
t table? (3:3). The musicalty of the scene, as depicted in the Clasicl Comics version, 
becoms apparent with t inclusion of t musial nots that aompany the imps?those 
?shapes.? While, obviously, the reader does not ?her? any real music while reading thes 
panels, the efct of the music is stil implictly establisd.  It is arguabl that t musicalty of 
the sce, and subsequently the panel, could even be presentd as more open to interpretion 
than a performd adaptation of t play.  As wa discusd in sction one, graphic narrative is 
innately a particpatory medium, relying hevily on the reader to provide closure to gaps 
presntd in the text. When intrpreting graphic narrative as opposed to a stage performance, the 
reader is abl to substiute any number of ?notes? or ?tunes? for thos fint blue notes that scuttl 
cross the panel.  Hre, the reader is given a partial hand in the creative production of the work.  
Tre is no fixed tune being plyed, as would be the cse with a performance of t same scne.  
Instead the reader may be drawn deeper into t narrative; he or she is now abl to be an ative 
particnt in drafting this scene due to the ?limtaions? of t medium.  Simply because the 
medium has no audible component does not preclude the us of auditory elents. 
 
 34 
 
Figure 2.4 Tempest pg. 92 
 Figure 2.4 provides another excerpt from Act 3, Scene 3 and comes imediatly before 
the action of Fi 2.3.  Here, Aril is diguised a the harpy (admitdly a more odern harpy 
 
 35 
rather than an Early Modern one), and keeping with the stage directions of ?he vanishe in 
thunder?? reders are given the text ?KA-RA!? acompanied by t lightning bolt.  T 
sound of the lightning strike tas on an onomatopoeti quality so that readers ?hear? the sound 
of the lightning as it happens.  This i a slight diferentiaton tn the soft musicl notes with no 
prescribed sound or rhythm.  Instead, reders?again as active particpants in the txt?provide 
the sound, as directed by the adaptr, to acompany the panel.  While ts sound is fixed in time 
and space (thus not being open to interpretaion like t notes of music), it acomplishe 
lowing the audienc to particpat in the text.  More to the point, it gives viual and auditory 
representation to the stage notes of t play.  There is no need for some explanatory, 
narratologicl device.  By depicting what would be in the stage nots?the sounds, the 
moveents, and the desribed ation? in a visual manner, simlr efects arechieved; the 
necsary information is given to the reader to elborate and enrich the ation of the scne. It 
would be a logicl asumption that t rer, in the cas of these graphic narratives, i ?ating? 
the part of the stage directions.   
 Truly, it is surprising that Hutcheon does not give more credence to graphic narrative in 
her tory of adaptation; instead, s only uses theedium to establish adaptations from comics 
to film, or to explin the commrcilzation of comic adaptations into other mrketble goods.  
For instance, she discuses t cercilzation of the Bob Kne character Batman, into a very 
merchandisbl commodity, spawning rollr-coaster rides, toys, movis, tlvision shows (both 
live-action and cartoon), books, and, of cours, numrous stories appearing in his DC Comic?s 
seri (88).  Surely investigaon into how adaptation functions in graphic narrative is a worthy 
ndeavor, and should be given more criticl credence than being used to establish a mode of 
commercilzation. The moves graphi artist make when adapting storis to theedium are 
 
 36 
drastic, alowing for ?palimpsestically? crafted narratives to move, change, and transport the 
source txt into wildly iaginative new forms.  This i a medium tt clearly reside in a space 
betwn the lines of ?traditionl? text and visual art, which is what gives the medium its adaptive 
potency.  Tre is a space for art and sound and established rhetorical fouris that alow the 
reader to understand the characters of a story more intitely than in mny other mediums that 
rely, to one extent or anotr, on visual rhetoric. Whil graphic narrative may not rely as much 
on external narratological mneuvers to present psychologial underpinnings (such as the 
creation of identity or internal dialogue) than, say, film, which relies heavily on voice-over or 
musil section to acomplish the sme tsk, it certinly ses to wve thos maneuvers into 
the txt more organialy.   Readers are not given a dismbodid voice commenting on the 
presentd actions; insted they re given an easy-tounderstand wy of connecting thoughts to 
charatrs.  Asuredly, a narrating voice is a feture used in graphic narratives, but it sems more 
losely connected to the text, appearing longside the structures of the story, narrative instad of 
commnting on t narrative. One cn imagine why a seris like Clasic Illustraed?or even its 
newer, more contemporary cousin Clsicl Comics?an sustin a long tradition of work solely 
basd on adaptations; its a medium that provides aesibilty and has a hitorical lineage of 
being apttion friendly, with numrous adaptations of litrary works welithin comic 
catlogues.   
 Perhaps its because of this lineage that some authors are moving past the simple, close 
adapttions of literary works and are breking new ground in the ways adaptation happens in 
graphic narrative.  What artist like Neil Gaimn and Alen Moore arecomplishing with their 
adaptive works gis a nod to the mdium?s linege whil going forward in new directions.  For 
 
 37 
their work not only adapts portions of clasicl literaure to their stories, there is something much 
more interesting afoot: narratologicl reppropriation. 
 
 
 38 
 
 
 
Narratological Reappropiation: Wher Stories, Characters, Authors, and Style Collide 
 There has ben a common trend in the production of graphic narratives to adapt works of 
literaure to t genre, usualy in the hope of reaching new audiencs.  With generations of 
contmporary graphic novelist (fans and artist alike) growing up with Classic Illustrated 
seri, it ses fitng that the graphic narrative genre would begin to play with adaptation.  Over 
the last fw decades, graphic novelist ha increasingly used themes, stories, characters, or en 
uthors from the literary canon as important figures in their own work.  From Alan Moore?s 
League of Extraordinary Gentlen, which igines literary characters such as Dr. Jekyll and 
Mina Harker taking on the rol of super-heroes, to Bil Wilngham?s sris Fabls, a sris that 
uses notble characters such as Snow White, Cinderela, and Sinbad, there appears to be a 
wilngnes to co-opt thes notable fcts of litraure for the author?s own purposes. This raies 
a serious question: what do w cl such a phenomenon?  Character borrowing? Litrary theft? 
Artistc plagirism? 
 The term tha fits bet may be narratological reppropriation, for this phrase ms to 
encapsult wt these authors arechieving with their texts.  If we break down the phrase 
?narratological repproprition,? it beoms l opaque; it mans reusing parts of one author?s 
rrative for a diferent purpose.  I trm the phrase ?reapproprition? becae it encapsultes he 
idea of incesant borrowing from establisd, canonicl sources.  Authors are f to redily 
engage with charcters, themes, ides, or other fets of litraure, but by emphasizng 
?rappropriation? one can understand t repetive nature of such continued borrowing.  Going 
 
 39 
back to Hutcheon?s idea of a continuum of adaptation, readers can se where authors may have 
originaly absonded with one another?s work, and where subsquent authors and artist ha 
continued to use and reuse narratological piecs and parts.  Here, the author reappropriating the 
narratological fixture (whetr that be them, character, plot, or sting) has much to gain from 
such an endevor, because most readers understand the basic elmnts of tories. When author 
like Alan Moore deides to us the character Mina Hrker, he is able to maneuver t 
audienc?s prior knowledge of her?namly her appearance in Bram Stoker?s Dracula?to be 
ither in-line with or juxtaposed to the purposes ofMoore?s narrative.  Mina Harker cn ?ct? 
like Stoker?s representtion of her, or Moore can plce her within new contexts and new 
situaions that would set her original representtion against herself, alowing for more flexibility 
and opennes to actions and interpretaions.  By having her com into contact wih other litrary 
charaters, Moore extends his work and the source txt.   
Again, w s the efacemnt of t original work alowing for the adaptation.  By 
removing the character from one context and placing itihin anotr, t two works are in 
dialogue and a spa for the adaptation is creted: the source txt informs the adaption while the 
daption ?opens up? t source txt, alowing for new placs for the text to move and be 
interpretd.  Both the adaptd txt and the source txt are on t sam adaptive continuum, 
perhaps partialy overlapping one anotr. Whil the case could be mde that this i simply a 
heightened form of fn-ficton?displaying one author?s adoration for another author?s 
narratological fixtures and reimgining sid fxtures in a new way?such a claim would be 
dismive of the critical iportance a maneuver such as narratological repproprition entails, 
while devaluing a medium that regulrly hasultiple authors sharing characters, stings, or 
other story elemnts (Batman, for instance, has ben writn by many difrent authors and artist 
 
 40 
over its seventy year run).  Instead, one should think of texts a what some scholars describe as 
fluid (Hutcheon, 170).  No txt is necesarily fixed in spac, and through the proces of 
narratologial reppropriation texts are shown to be very fluid.  Here any part of an author?s 
work is redy to be picked up and usd by another author, whil there a an unknowable number 
of other authors doing the same thing. 
 To guide this exploration into narratological reppropriation, a few txts wil be looked at 
in closer detail: two isue from Neil Gaimn?s critily aclimed Sandman seris (ilustraed 
by Charls Ves), and a short work from Robert Sikoryak?s Mastrpice Comics.  Both authors 
reappropriat lirary elmnts for their own ends, but they do so in divergent ways.  Gaimn 
retes charactrs and historical figures to extend his story, whereas Sikoryak tkes 
notions of narratologial repproprition to a difrent lvel, mashing togetr styles and plots 
from multiple authors into a ?new? text.  
 Gaimn?s Sandman seri recived critical alaim in the 1980s and 1990s, with isue 
number nineten, ?A Midsummr Night?s Dre? winning t World Fantsy Award in 1991 
(the first graphic narrative to ever capture a literary award).  Versaci summrizes the seris bet: 
Desribing this marvelous and imginative sries in a fw sntencs inevitably 
reductive, but in esenc Sandman chronicls the lives of the Endls, seven siblngs who 
preside over various facts of existenc: Destiny, Death, Desire, Dspair, Dlirium, 
Destruction, and Drem. The ostnsibl focus of the sris i this lat character?known 
also a ?Sandmn??and t intrigues that he and his siblngs find themslve enmshed 
in through various plnes of existenc, iluding our own world.  As readers of Sandman 
would be quick to point out, howver, the seris i more acurately a celbration of 
stories and storyteling (200-202). 
 
 41 
Gaimn present his seris with a fundamental wrrant at is foundation: dreams and stories are 
closely relatd.  Thus its not surprising that the protagonist, Dream, encounters the young, 
struggling artist Wilam Shakespeare erly in t seris.  The two rech a mutualy benefical 
bargain: Drea wil give Ssre unparald abilites with the pen (with the promise that 
he wil beter remebered than his friend Kit Marlow), if heil write two plays for Dream 
(Gaimn 32). Of cours these two plays are A Midsummer Night?s Dram and The Tepest.  Yet 
it isn these two isue (both titld ? Midser Night?s Drea? and ?mst? 
respectively) that we s narratological reppropriation being bandied about for what appears to 
be two diferent purposs.  While both isue concern the charactr of Wilam Skespere, the 
ay he appears and is used in thos is seems to be wt is at ske. 
 ?Midsummr? starts with Shakespeare and his traveling troupe of actors (named here as 
the Lord Strange?s Men) meting Drem on the rolling plains of Sussex, where he has instructed 
Shakespeare to perform his play.  When Richard Burbage asks what audince t troupe wil be 
playing for, Dream opens a portl to Faeri and out walk Oberon, Titani, Robin Goodfelow, 
nd the rest of the supernatural charactrs from the ply, all taking their plces on the gren to 
watch Shakespeare?s story?commisoned by Dream?unfold (Giman 67).  Figure 3.1 is an 
excrpt from Gimn?s ?Midsumer? in which the characters of the otrworldly audienc meet 
their fantstic counterparts.  Hre reappropriated cratrs are given freedom to dwl in the 
sme spae; Titani and Oberon openly discus the play (as wel as the performance?s payment) 
with Shakespere while Puck charms the young actor so that he can tke his plc.   
 
 42 
 
Figure 3.1, Gaimn ?Midsummer? 77 
One has to wonder how many stories Gian is efacing in order to create his adaptation.  
He has reappropriated the ?historicl? Shakespere, as wel as hi play?providing scnes that 
appr in the ply and scnes that are entirely his own invention (like the one presentd in Figure 
 
 43 
3.1). Perhaps what is most interesting for this investigaon is how seamlsy the appropriated 
work and cracters fit into Gaimn?s original narrative.  It se natural for a charactr such as 
Dream who, in many wys, is the ebodient of story tling to have friends and aquaintances 
ranging from Shakespere and Kit Marlow to Oberon and Robin Goodflow.  This i not 
adapttion for the sa of recasting the original work; instead, audiencs are greetd with a 
fnciful, far-reching narrative that skips across ?hitoricl? ficton into other trritoris.  The 
blending of appropriated cracters with entirely invented charaters alows for a level of play 
betwn the two narratives.  Again, while the Gaimn txt efacs the Shakespeare ply in order 
to create this space for his adaption, Gain is alo recontextualizng t historicl narrative tha 
Shakespere is a part of.  If Shakespere?s play is a fluid onstruction and the history of 
sare, the man, cn simlarly be sen as fluid, then it is not that far of a strech for Gaimn 
to be reppropriting piecs from both storis?Shakespeare?s play and Skespeare?s history.  
In this instance, it is the blnding together of his narrative and Shakespeare?s ply that provides 
this new contxt; Gaimn has created a fictonal explation tt recst the way in which 
Shakespeare?s ply and Shakespere?s history cn be red.  In not so fewords, Giman is 
clenging the historicity of the narrative in which Shakespeare is draftd, and trets the 
?historical? Shakespeare no diferently than he would one of Midsummer?s characters.  By using 
Drem as the underlying reson that gives cause for Shakespeare?s plays, Gain is offring an 
efacd version of the historical ents that promptd the source txt.  
If Gaimn?s use of narratological reppropriation in ?Midsummer? shows the mutability 
of characters and their plac in a narrative structure (be that fictve or historical), he pointedly 
chooss a difrent approah for ?Tempest,? the last iue in the Sandman seris. It i the tms 
of the texts that are transferred and reapproprited betwen t texts.  Whil the narrative is 
 
 44 
mostly concerned with Shakespeare?s drafting of The Tempest, Gain uses Shakespeare?s play 
as a way of connecting the tmes of the work to both Shakesre the man (or at lest how 
Gimn is using this ?torical? iagining of Wilam Sspeare) and Drem. 
 
Figure 3.2 Gaimn, ?Tepest? 1 
 
 45 
From the outset of the story, the reader is preentd with two parale narratives.  In 
igure 3.2, we s t opening of t ply juxtposith Shakespeare riting the play.  While 
the structure of this story may strike some resmblance to ?Midsummer??both stories are 
concerned with Wilam Shaspeare, his faily, and his frindsthe major difrenc is that, in 
?Tmpest,? the reder is never gin portrayals of the play?s characters interacting with 
Shakesare or Dream.  Instead, the action of t ply is alwys presntd juxtaposed to the story 
of Wilm Shakespere and his delings with Dream.  Further, tre is a mrked difrence 
betwen the way the panels referring to Gain?s story and t panels referring to Shakespeare?s 
play are dran.  T story?s panels are much the same as they have ben throughout the seris: 
firly relistc characters, strong lis, and pronouncd shadows.  The panels from t play are 
drasticaly diferent, taking on a painterly quality with thin lines, cloudy, almost ipresionistic 
lndspes, very litl shading, and a noticably softer color palet.  Again, these viual changes 
are cues for readers tt the two stories are juxtposd, never actualy meting, even though the 
two are in dilogue.  Figure 3.2 is a good example of this: the storm is raging around the smal 
ship, just as Judith tels her fther that a storm is coming.  Here w have a ?real? storm?t one 
tha Skespeare wilalk through to go to the inn for a drink?and the ?depicted? st that 
sinks Antonio?s ship. 
If it was unclear that Gaimn is using Prospero as a metaphorical stnd-in for 
Shakespere, he overtly confronts reders with this a his story continues.  In Figure 3.3, 
sare is reading a speech to hisife, Anne. In the three panel sequence across the top of 
the page, he is recitng the famous ?w are such stuff as drems are mde on? speh; however, 
over t course of those lines (and those panels) the speaker switches betwen Shakespeare and 
 
 46 
Prospero.  Here, the panels each rtain their own distinc artistc styles guiding the reader 
through the paral storis, mking sure to keep the two narratives clos but decidly separat.  
 
Figure 3.3 Gaimn, ?Tepest? 27 
 
 47 
Nearly halfway through the story, Dream appears to discus the play he commisoned 
from Shakespere, nd audiencs are confronted with the metaphoril nature of Gain?s work.   
Much li the reader, Shakespeare has one simpl question for Drem: ?Why this ply?? 
(Gaimn 22)  This quetion goes on for the rest of the tale until Drea tkes Shakespeare to his 
rel upon completion of the play.  Here Shakespere expands on his quetion (emphasi 
Gaimn?s): 
So why this play?  It is a topical piec?I took the inspiration for it from the wreck of the 
sea-venture in the Bermudas lt yer.  The story is merely the story all parents tel to 
amuse their children.  There is some of me in it.  Som of Judith.  Things I saw, things I 
thought.  I stole a speech from one of Montaigne?s esays, and closed with an 
unequivocaly cheap and happy ending.  Why did you not wnt a tragedy? Something 
lofty, something dark, a tale of a noble hero with a tragic flaw? (Gaimn 35) 
As staed erlir in the previous sction, Dream?s answer is very siple: ?I wnted a tale of 
gracful ends.  I wanted a play about a king who drow his books, and breaks his stf, and 
leaves hi kingdom.  About a mgician who becomes a man.  About a mn who turns his back on 
mgic? (Gaimn 35).  Here theetphor of the play within a story comes full-circle; al three?
Shakespere, Prospero, and Dream?re desperatelnting a return to normality.  The burden 
of their gifts, powers, and positons ses to have finaly caught up with them, and t ser 
world-earins of each charactr is palble.  It is no coincidee that one of Shakespeare?s 
last, non co-uthored, plys concludes Gaimn?s sries (The Two Nobl Kinsman probably 
coming after Tmpest and believed to have been co-writn with John Fletcher). Perhaps in a 
move to atpt to connect this iue with the ?Midsummer? isue, the reader is given those 
silar informative captions in the final panel.  Figure 3.4 shows t final page of the sris 
 
 48 
where t exhausted Shakespeare writes the final epilogue, the words from the play lid over the 
images of the author at work. 
 
Figure 3.4 Gaimn, ?Tepest? 38 
 
 49 
 To conclude this section, we turn to the work of Robert Sikoryak and his 2009 releas 
Masterpice Comics.  This colltion of short comics, which Sik has writen over a number 
of years, represnt narratological reppropriation taken to its furthest extrem. The comics that 
Sikoryak has created do not fit wh ny of the otr graphic narratives previously disused.  
Instead, as sen is Figure 3.5, Sikoryak has co-opted both substance and style to creat his work.  
What is particularly striking is the degree of reduction in Sikoryak?s story.   
One must first understand that Sikoryak has limted his story?s form to the genre of 
Sunday comic.  This explins two important fetures: hi work is in color, and it is ten panels per 
page, laid out in a traditional left-toright mnner with litle variation betwen panel siz (except 
for the panel with the titl, which is appropriately eongatd to strech aross the entire page).   
 
 50 
 
 
 51 
 
Figure 3.5 Sikoryak 10-11 
 
 52 
 Here Sikoryak has taken the story of Shakespeare?s Macbeth and the style of Alen 
Saunders and Ken Ernst?s syndicted comic ?Mary Worth? and combined t two together.  
There a coupl of easy obsrvations to mke when first confronted with these to comic 
strips: this i a much abridged version of the play, and Sikoryak plays fst and loos with his 
Shakespearen language.  While Gaimn gives gret care to how he handles Shakespeare?s 
craters and his l, no such cre is taken on Sikoryak?s part.  Instad, the reder is given 
setions of Shakespearen language juxtposed against more modern lnguage.  For example, the 
first panel preserve some of Ldy Macbeth?s cal to ?unsex? her, whereas the next panel has t 
humdrum ?yes dear? styl cmon to soap opera styl comics like Mary Worth.  Stylistcaly, 
this fit with the genre of comic that Sikoryak is engaged in; the comic?s ation is very miniml 
and has an abundance of word bubbles and narrator blocks.  By staying close to his chosen genre 
of Sunday, drama-driven comics, Sikoryak has mimcked the genre in his reappropriation. The 
reader is left unsure about whatas more iportant for t author to rete: the style of 
the comic or the content of its sory. 
 While Sikoryak?s aptitude for comi art reproduction is quite obvious, what are the 
ramifcations for narratological reppropriation when confrontd with something like ?Mac 
orth??  Versaci mkes the point that 
it ismpossible to read, sy, Sikoryak?s [?Mac Worth?] without being aware of the [Mary 
Worth] comics.  Every panel of Sik?s work reminds readers of a piec of comic 
book history en as they move through the plot of a recognizble story from Westrn 
literaure.  As such, it becomes impossible to sparate thes two worlds (Vrsaci 206).  
This i the true merit of Sikoryak?s txt and his negotiaton of narratological repproprition, for 
he has gone one stp further than simply using the elmnts of another author?s story.  Instead he 
 
 53 
has taken from both works, using them to create an interesting dialogue.  One cannot read ?Mac 
Worth? and not think of Shakespeare?s ply of betrayal and murder, without having to confront 
the style usd for a syndicated comic about a widow in her condominium.  Sikoryak ties the two 
togetr in order to forc the reder to negotiate thes two, drasticaly diferent storis in order to 
create som sens of a cohesive meaning.  W cnnot place ?M Worth? on a single adaptive 
ontinuum; readers wil ha to s this comic as both an adaptation of Macbeth and of Mary 
Worth. 
 Whetr readers find critical merit or novelty in Sikoryak?s work, he negotiates 
narratological reppropriation uniquely, not quite reappropriating like Gaimn.  The difrence is 
tha he does not fshion his own story out of th reted parts.  There is no ?Dream? 
crater to offer an explanation or an efacemnt of history and story.  Sikoryak fshions a 
reappropriatd styl with a reppropritd plot and lets them stand alone as their own narrative.  
This, of course, could be problematic for readers who may be unfilar with eitr the story or 
the style that Sikoryak is borrowing from.  While tsould certinly led to some ratr 
confusing intrpretaions of the texts, Sikoryak has preemptd such confusion.  Whil, raders 
are given some fredom to read into the juxtapositons of style and story, Sikoryak reserve some 
room to expand and explin his stylistc deis.  In a sction he tongue-inchekly pens as 
?Masterpic Queries? (paying homage to the comics of yester-year that had setions for readers 
to writ in questions to the author or artist) wre Sikoryak writs in a question to ?the 
Profesor? (?the Profesor,? of course, is Sikoryak). One such fictonalstion asks, ?in MAC 
WORTH, why would Mac listen to Mrs. M?s terribl advie? (Sikoryak 30)?  This quetion is 
writen as if the reader is unaware of the two difrent narratives that Sikoryak is reappropriating. 
 
 54 
The Profesor?s reply gives a lengthy explanation about how the combination of Macbeth and 
Mary Worth work: 
Perhaps Mac ws the wrong man for the job.  He couldn?t ?screw [his] courage to the 
sticking-ple,? as t poet Wilm Shakespeare expresed it in his Scottish play, circa 
1607.  The personality of Mrs. M. is reiniscent of the titular charater of a 1940 
dramatic comic strip, produced for many years by t tem of writr Aln Sanders [sic] 
nd artist Ken Ernst.  That cartoon str is a kindly and percptive busybody, whose 
advice is consistntly and strtlingly, very efective and generaly embraced by her many 
frinds and relati.  In our story, Mac somwhat resembls a fictonal mdial doctor 
(who is alo himself the eponymous str of another srializd strip, realized in 1948 by 
the tea of Dal Curtis, Marvin Bradley, and Frank Edgington).  That doctor was fr more 
fctive using knives to perform surgery than he ever would be to commit murder. 
(Sikoryak 30) 
Sikoryak?s decison is made clearer.    He has adequately explained the interplay betwen the 
two texts, while giving importnt informtion to rers who re unfamilr with the txts he i 
facing.  Hre, it is the juxtapositon of entirely divergent thees that gives t comic 
purpose?a tle of murder pited against a traditional dramatic omic.   
 What is the future for narratological repproprition?  Whih fork in the road wil graphic 
novelist and cartoon artist decide to tke? While the critical importance of what authors like 
Gaimn and Sikoryak are doing is stil left to be detrmined, one cn igine tt audiencs will 
continue to se such moves made by future authors.  With the ubiquitous promi of the 
Internet, the ris in indepent comic aut appears to be t future of the medium.  What is 
ncouraging is that narratological reppropriation ars t present and popular in this new 
 
 55 
medium, with authors like Brooke McEldowney whose wbcomic ?Pibgorn? has recently 
published a version of Midsummer (now in paperback) using only the characters from his comic 
seri.  It sems a if the mdi of comics may be changing, t number of authors may be 
increasing, but some of t forms and fixtures of the genre wil stay the same.  It is the long 
tradition of graphic adaptations of texts that we have to thank for it. 
 
 56 
 
 
 
Works Cited 
Gaimn, Nal (w), and Ves, Charles (a). ?A Midsummer Night?s Dream.? Adapted from A 
Midsummer Night?s Dram by Wila Shakespeare. The Sandman: Dram Country, vol. 
3. E. Karen Berger, Michael Charles Hil, and Bob Khan. NY: DC Comics, 1995: 62 ? 
86. Print. 
---. ?The Tempest.? Adapted from The Tempest by Wilam Shakespeare. The Sandman #75 
(Mar. 1996). Ed. Karen Berger. NY: DC Comics, 1996. Print. 
Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print. 
Kidnie, Margaret Jane. Shakespeare and the Problm of Adaptation. New York (NY): 
Routledge, 2009. Print. 
McDonald, John (w), Hawrd, Jon (a), Erskine Gary (i), and Dobbyn, Nigel (l). The Tempest: 
The Graphic Novel, Original Text Vrsion. Adapted from The Tempest by Wila 
Shakespeare. Ed. Clive Bryant. Litchborough: Clasicl Comcs Ltd., 2009. Print. 
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comis: the Invisble Art. New York: HarperPerennial, 1993. 
Print. 
rat, Mary Louise. Ed. Tony Petrosky. Ways of Reading: an Anthology for Writers. Ed. David 
Bartholoma. 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2005. 499-511. Print. 
Shakespeare, Wilm. "The Tempest." The Longman Anthology of World Literature. By David 
Drosch and David L. Pike. Ed. Joseph Trry. 2nd ed. Vol. C. Nw York: 
Pearson/Longmn, 2009. 614-67. Print. 
 
 57 
Sikoryak, R. Masterpice Comics. Montr?al: Drawn and Quarterly, 2009. Print. 
Versaci, Rocco. This Book Contains Graphic Language: Comics as Literature. Nw York: 
Continuum, 2007. Print. 
Woolf, Virginia. "The Movies and Reality." New Republic 47 (1926): 308-10. Print.