Those were the parameters working on the Classics Illustrated series. Back in 1990 I adapted Upton Sinclair’s 358 page The Jungle into a 48-page comic. The longer a book the more editing has to happen to make it work as a graphic novel. Would that have changed if Heart of Darkness had been novel length and not novella sized? There are aspects of the book I found confounding and felt I could clarify and address some of the criticisms of the book, without undermining the essence of what makes it worthy of being in the literary canon. Also, I was looking at this story through my 21st century lens, as well as my own take on the book as a reader. I’m translating it into a visual medium that allows the pictures to stand in for some descriptions. I got a month-long flu, stomach trouble, stung by insects, chased by dogs - it was perfect.
To further get into the material I moved to Mexico (where I had previously lived for a couple of years back in 2006-8) for a four-month period while I was working on the research and roughing out the art to get into the proper sweaty frame of mind. I’ve done lots of traveling over the years including Africa and New Guinea, and could really visualize the circumstances in the tale.
It was more than perfect fit with both my visual approaches and my direct experience. It was their suggestion, but it was right up my alley, and having adapted Kafka my adapting brain was in full swing. The publisher agreed to do that book if I would do Heart Of Darkness. I had been adapting Franz Kafka short stories for the collection that became my previous book, Kafkaesque.
What made you want to do an adaptation of Conrad’s novella and, more importantly, made you think you were the right person to do it? The deeper story is about civilization and savagery and a commentary on the barbarity of colonialism, but that’s the short answer. Written in 1899, it’s the tale of a young captain named Marlow sent to Africa by a trading company that needs to retrieve one of their best managers who has apparently gone mad. In the following email interview, Kuper discusses how he came to write and draw Heart Of Darkness ( hardcover, Kindle), and how he adapted this racist story without losing its meaning.įor those who haven’t read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, what is that book about?Īpocalypse…then. Now he’s turned his eye, and his pen, towards Joseph Conrad’s controversial novella, Heart of Darkness. Spy for Mad Magazine or cartoons for The New Yorker, writer and artist Peter Kuper has done graphic novel adaptations of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.
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