My thanks to Edward Pettit at the Bibliothecary
for alerting me to the existence of R. Sikoryak's comic book adaptation of Dostoevsky's masterpiece Crime and Punishment. At last! Someone who has risked the wrath of the purists even more than me! And if you follow this link to a feature in Brian Hughes' Again with the Comics blog, and check out some of the comments, you'll see that a fair amount of spleen has been predictably spent.
Well, I left my own comment, in support of the venture, of course. After all it looks like it could deflect a fair amount of flak from me, as it's far more irreverent than anything I would have dared. Possibly. I mean, I only had the temerity to imagine Porfiry Petrovich investigating other cases. Sikoryak goes so far as to depict Raskolnikov as Batman? He even, I believe, transforms Sonia into Sonny, a cross-dressing Robin-style sidekick. It sounds... brilliant.
What people forget is that Fyodor had a great sense of humour. I think he would have loved it. But I would say that, wouldn't I?
6 comments:
If people just took the poker out of their backsides and got on with laughing instead of criticising all the time, the world would be a much jollier place.
The comic looks terrific and the idea of taking an established character and making him/her do new things is also amazing!
There is so little that is new under the sun that we should applaud (non-abusive) audacity.
I think this is an excellent idea, and I'll certainly be taking a look. For one, I'm a fan of Batman, secondly, I've never read Crime & Punishment, and thirdly, it will give me some background for when I come to read A Gentle Axe!
Who in their right mind can have a problem with the re-imagining of famous stories?
JB
Are many people born without a sense of humor, or is there some sort of humor-ectomy people get?
Hi there Sarah, JB and David. Thanks for looking in. Sarah, you're right about pokers and backsides. Absolutely. JB, I've been in touch with the artist and he's given me details of where to get it. He said:
"I'm compiling a collection of my classic comic parodies, which will be published late next year by Drawn and Quarterly.
You can see selected panels from some of the others on my website:
http://rsikoryak.com/mastcom.html
In the meantime, the Dostoyevsky story (it's 10 pages, plus the cover image) was originally published in the anthology "Drawn & Quarterly Volume 3."
It's still available at:
http://www.drawnandquarterly.com/shopCatalogLong.php?item=a3e57ff2e14e66
You may also be able to find used copies elsewhere."
David, who would choose to have a humor-ectomy? Were they originally people who had such an over-developed sense of humour that they were in danger of dying from laughing? If so, it's tragic that they elected to have the op.
Oh, I think many people might go for the operation. At least 90% of our political and religious leaders seem to have had them to make them better at their jobs.
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