My Summer Lair Chapter #169: If You Haven’t Read The Book Will You Be Willing To Read The First-Ever Graphic Novel Adaptation Of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five?
Typically I write a shows notes book review combo. However this time I’ll just share what Ryan North has written about adapting Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five one of the best anti-war novels:
“I wrote this book, but I think it’s really good! And I can say that because comics is a collaborative medium, and my script was only a small part of it: Albert’s beautiful art and graphic storytelling sensibility took what was there in my script and turned it into something incredible.
And of course Vonnegut’s original prose novel is timeless and one of my favourite books of all time. The book itself is the result of all theses talents and more, and I can say without ego that it’s something really special.
If you’re curious about this version of Slaughterhouse-Five, let me tell you that our goal with it was to make it feel like it was written as a comic first, to make it feel at home in the medium. This isn’t the prose novel crammed into boxes with some pictures added, but rather a version of the same story that lives within comics, that does everything it can to tell the same story – and make you feel the same sense of sorrow and loss and hope and love – in this new medium.
If you’ve read Slaughterhouse-Five before you’ll feel at home with this graphic novel and hopefully discover something new and wonderful about the book you love… and if you’ve never read it, or Vonnegut, I can promise you that you’ll find in him a unique, powerful and above all sympathetic and humanist voice that you can carry with you for the rest of your life.”
Ryan does a better job explaining Vonnegut’s complex novel than I could. This adaptation is fantastic: get your whole face into this graphic novel.
