Fantasy gone graphic

Filed under Trends & Tropes on May 16, 2008
Keywords: comic books, fantasy fiction, superheroes

My apologies to everyone who was unable to post over the last couple days. It seems there was an issue with the anti-spam plugin. I’ve disabled the plugin until the I can get the issue resolved or regress to the last working version.

Talking about superheroes naturally leads to a discussion of comic books. Comic books as a format first appeared in 1934, and are one of two art forms attributed as indigenous to America (the other being jazz). While comic books have become synonymous with superheroes, the medium–along with its cousin the graphic novel–has been used to tell many different types of stories. Fantasy fiction is no exception. I can remember seeing Marvel’s Conan, Krull and Red Sonja on the bookshelves of my favorite local comic book shop back in the day. I personally collected the Epic imprint run of Elfquest.

There has been a recent resurgence of fantasy fiction in comic books, lead by Devil’s Due Publishing and their titles based upon several D&D intellectual properties, most notably R. A. Salvatore’s Drizzt. Fantasy comic books have long been the domain of small press publishers, and continue to flourish there, but they are getting more notice and exposure.

Likewise, superheroes are starting to appear with more and more frequency on pages of printed word, sans illustrations. And we’re not just talking about movie adaptations. Mainstays from Marvel and DC have their own lines of novels. George R. R. Martin is the editor of the Wild Cards anthologies. James Lowder served as editor for a pair of Silver Age Sentinels anthologies back in 2004.

The result of these format crossovers is a choice for how a writer wants to present their story. There’s something very exciting about the prospect of seeing characters and scenes transported from your imagination to a drawing on a page. However, unless you’re one of those dual-talented folks that can create images with a pen as well as you can words, turning your fantasy fiction into a comic book requires collaboration. Finding an artist can be just as difficult a hurdle as getting a manuscript accepted by a publisher. Just as my friend J. L. Collins.

I’m pursuing traditional print publication for the fantasy fiction I’m writing now, but depending on the success of the superhero webcomic I’m working on, I may develop future stories with an eye toward comic books. Given the choice between comic books or novels, how do you prefer your fantasy fiction?

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