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'Kidnapped gets the Judge Dredd treatment'

Started by Proudhuff, 17 July, 2006, 05:33:03 AM

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Proudhuff

This from the Sunday Herald:
Nice Cam picture of Balfour overlooking Edinburgh...

Kidnapped gets the Judge Dredd treatment
By Paul Dalgarno

 

A COMIC book dream team has been drawn in by Edinburgh City of Literature to give Robert Louis Stevenson the Judge Dredd treatment.
Scots writer Alan Grant and illustrator Cam Kennedy ? who have a worldwide reputation for their work on Batman, Star Wars and Judge Dredd comics ? have produced a graphic novel version of Stevenson?s classic work Kidnapped, which sees 17-year-old David Balfour embark on an epic adventure with the Jacobite fugitive Alan Breck Stuart.

The work will form part of the flagship One Book, One Edinburgh campaign, which aims to get as many people as possible reading the same book come February next year. A new paperback edition of the text, with a foreword by crime writer Louise Welsh, and a ?retold? edition for children, will also form part of the project.

Dubbing the graphic novel version a tale for the ?PlayStation generation?, Grant said the story would lose nothing of its original depth and meaning.

?Hopefully the fact it?s an illustrated version is going to get younger readers to pick it up, as that?s really what our brief is,? he said. ?If Stevenson had been alive now I like to think he would have been writing Batman stories because he had exactly the right kind of mind for it.?

Publisher Waverley Books expects the novel to go on general release next spring, with several international companies already expressing an interest. Discussions are also under way to have the book introduced to the Scottish school curriculum.

Kennedy ? who is more used to sketching far-off planets than the slopes and heather of Glencoe ? said he was surprised more classic works hadn?t been given the same treatment.

?Given the size of Scotland, the work that has been done for the comic industry far outweighs anyone else?s,? he said. ?I?m hoping there might be other Scottish publishers who will see this novel and think it?s something they would like to do. A book like Jekyll And Hyde jumps out as an obvious example that would give our artists and writers something to do for their country.?

Edinburgh became the first Unesco City of Literature in 2004 after a campaign by MSPs and literary figures. While the organising body has come under fire for its low-key approach to date, the choice of Kidnapped for the One Book campaign ? which will see free copies of the novel distributed in the capital?s libraries ? has been praised.

Alan Riach, chair of Scottish literature at Glasgow University, said it would ?open the doors? for further such initiatives. ?It?s a very good choice of novel for this campaign as it starts off looking like a children?s book but takes you in all curious directions. The concepts are universal ? but are absolutely Scottish in context. Scottish literature will always have to be fought for and this is all to the good.?

City of Literature manager Alison Bowden said the graphic novel would lend an extra edge to the campaign: ?It?s really hard getting that 14 to 18-year-old male audience interested in reading. We felt it important, being a Scottish book, a Scottish author and a Scottish campaign, that we get a Scottish artist behind it. To get two top-quality, world-class artists involved is even better.?
One Book, One Edinburgh will run throughout February 2007

DDT did a job on me

The Amstor Computer

Sounds really interesting - a little like the Puffin Graphics line (which seems to have died on its arse, sadly) and definitely one to watch out for.

Dark Jimbo

It's nice that as 'da kidz' sink further and further into a reeking cultural morass where the written word is non-existant and the only books they care about are either sent as texts to your phone or health pick-ups in 'Death Librarian 4!!!', the 'authorities' are starting to get a little desperate at what they can see happening in the immediate future - and now that they're trying to do anything they can to get 'da kidz' reading again, comics and graphic novels are becoming no longer as sneered upon, but recognised as a quite useful, intelligent and important art form. Well, nearly.
@jamesfeistdraws

Dudley

Presumably they didn't feel like simply reprinting "Midnapped", then?

Proudhuff



I'm just curious when the Golden Age was when all children read classics, listened to classical music and were kind to all furry little animals.

 It couldn't have been a 100 years ago as most kids were stuck up lums (chimneys to you), could hardly spell beyond the basics, got horrible diseases and had their heads painted purple.

and the first half of the last century they seemed to be cannon/factory fodder.

On a personal note, my youngest son started out on a comic Treasure Island, then the abridged one and finally the 'real' one.

Huff the elder
DDT did a job on me