SotA Anthology 2015-16 book and book- within- thebook, the adaptation alters the majority of references to books into comics; visits to the bookshop become visits to a comic shop; Manara’ s search for the elusive author Flannery becomes about comic scripts, not manuscripts. As comics and novels have distinctly separate histories this may cause a few fissures with content in future issues that would be difficult, but not impossible to consolidate, but for this project the transition has remained smooth.
Secondly, however satirical Calvino’ s intention may have been in making the everyman avatar‘ You’ a heterosexual male, this will be altered in the comics adaptation for two reasons. The first is due to the visual advantage offered by comics;‘ You’ will always appear wearing the same t- shirt, which acts as sufficient enough identity signifier that means the character can appear any gender or race, whilst still remaining recognisably the same character. This alteration has been made to highlight that the perspective of‘ You’ is more universal in scope than just heterosexual males. The second reason is that much of Western mainstream comics history is written by and for straight, white males, but recent years have seen this dominance challenged and altered, to the benefit of the entire industry, reader and publisher alike. The comics audience simply is not, nor has ever been, exclusively white, straight, and male, and mainstream publishers such as BOOM!, Image, and Marvel, are finding tremendous critical and financial success by recognising the diverse interests and backgrounds of readers. Recent examples include( pictured right) Monstress and Virgil( both Image), Ms. Marvel( Marvel), and Lumberjanes( BOOM!).
The material submitted covers the first seven pages of the proposed first issue of the adaptation. The entire novel would total 10 issues, released monthly, at the standard( at Image) length of roughly 32 pages front to back( though‘ oversized’ issues at much greater length are not uncommon). Each issue has an individual title that matches a chapter of the novel. Each issue is divided into two halves, the first corresponding to the second-person frame narrative, the second the novel-within- the- novel narrative. The second half will be introduced with an interior title page, and the art will switch to another style at this point. For example, If On A Winter Night will be black and white, heavily influenced by noir comics, while On a Carpet of Leaves( from Chapter 16) will, due to its Japanese setting, emulate some of the artistic traits of manga, such as aspectto-aspect transitions, and long stretches of silent, landscape laden panels.
© Image Comics; Marvel; BOOM!