Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation

Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2017-01-10
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 1613128622

Octavia E. Butler’s bestselling literary science-fiction masterpiece, Kindred, now in graphic novel format. More than 35 years after its release, Kindred continues to draw in new readers with its deep exploration of the violence and loss of humanity caused by slavery in the United States, and its complex and lasting impact on the present day. Adapted by celebrated academics and comics artists Damian Duffy and John Jennings, this graphic novel powerfully renders Butler’s mysterious and moving story, which spans racial and gender divides in the antebellum South through the 20th century. Butler’s most celebrated, critically acclaimed work tells the story of Dana, a young black woman who is suddenly and inexplicably transported from her home in 1970s California to the pre–Civil War South. As she time-travels between worlds, one in which she is a free woman and one where she is part of her own complicated familial history on a southern plantation, she becomes frighteningly entangled in the lives of Rufus, a conflicted white slaveholder and one of Dana’s own ancestors, and the many people who are enslaved by him. Held up as an essential work in feminist, science-fiction, and fantasy genres, and a cornerstone of the Afrofuturism movement, there are over 500,000 copies of Kindred in print. The intersectionality of race, history, and the treatment of women addressed within the original work remain critical topics in contemporary dialogue, both in the classroom and in the public sphere. Frightening, compelling, and richly imagined, Kindred offers an unflinching look at our complicated social history, transformed by the graphic novel format into a visually stunning work for a new generation of readers.

Kindred

Kindred
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2004-02-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0807083704

From the New York Times bestselling author of Parable of the Sower and MacArthur “Genius” Grant, Nebula, and Hugo award winner The visionary time-travel classic whose Black female hero is pulled through time to face the horrors of American slavery and explores the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now. “I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.” Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present. Blazing the trail for neo-slavery narratives like Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer, Butler takes one of speculative fiction’s oldest tropes and infuses it with lasting depth and power. Dana not only experiences the cruelties of slavery on her skin but also grimly learns to accept it as a condition of her own existence in the present. “Where stories about American slavery are often gratuitous, reducing its horror to explicit violence and brutality, Kindred is controlled and precise” (New York Times). “Reading Octavia Butler taught me to dream big, and I think it’s absolutely necessary that everybody have that freedom and that willingness to dream.” —N. K. Jemisin Developed for television by writer/executive producer Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Watchmen), executive producers also include Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields (The Americans, The Patient), and Darren Aronofsky (The Whale). Janicza Bravo (Zola) is director and an executive producer of the pilot. Kindred stars Mallori Johnson, Micah Stock, Ryan Kwanten, and Gayle Rankin.

Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation

Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2020-01-28
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 1683356748

2021 Hugo Award Winner for Best Graphic Story or Comic The follow-up to #1 New York Times Bestseller Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, comes Octavia E. Butler’s groundbreaking dystopian novel In this graphic novel adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower by Damian Duffy and John Jennings, the award-winning team behind Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, the author portrays a searing vision of America’s future. In the year 2024, the country is marred by unattended environmental and economic crises that lead to social chaos. Lauren Olamina, a preacher’s daughter living in Los Angeles, is protected from danger by the walls of her gated community. However, in a night of fire and death, what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny . . . and the birth of a new faith.

The Blacker the Ink

The Blacker the Ink
Author: Frances Gateward
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2015-07-16
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0813572355

When many think of comic books the first thing that comes to mind are caped crusaders and spandex-wearing super-heroes. Perhaps, inevitably, these images are of white men (and more rarely, women). It was not until the 1970s that African American superheroes such as Luke Cage, Blade, and others emerged. But as this exciting new collection reveals, these superhero comics are only one small component in a wealth of representations of black characters within comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels over the past century. The Blacker the Ink is the first book to explore not only the diverse range of black characters in comics, but also the multitude of ways that black artists, writers, and publishers have made a mark on the industry. Organized thematically into “panels” in tribute to sequential art published in the funny pages of newspapers, the fifteen original essays take us on a journey that reaches from the African American newspaper comics of the 1930s to the Francophone graphic novels of the 2000s. Even as it demonstrates the wide spectrum of images of African Americans in comics and sequential art, the collection also identifies common character types and themes running through everything from the strip The Boondocks to the graphic novel Nat Turner. Though it does not shy away from examining the legacy of racial stereotypes in comics and racial biases in the industry, The Blacker the Ink also offers inspiring stories of trailblazing African American artists and writers. Whether you are a diehard comic book fan or a casual reader of the funny pages, these essays will give you a new appreciation for how black characters and creators have brought a vibrant splash of color to the world of comics.

After the Rain

After the Rain
Author: Nnedi Okorafor
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 140
Release: 2021-01-05
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 1683358341

After the Rain is a graphic novel adaptation of Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor’s short story “On the Road.” During a violent and unexpected storm in a small Nigerian town, the destiny of a Nigerian-American woman named Chioma is revealed . . . and her life is changed forever. She answers a knock at her door and is horrified to see a boy with a severe head wound standing at her doorstep. He reaches for her, and his touch burns like fire. Something is very wrong. Haunted and hunted, Chioma must embrace her heritage in order to survive. John Jennings and David Brame’s graphic novel collaboration uses bold art and colors to powerfully tell this tale of identity and destiny.

Displacement

Displacement
Author: Kiku Hughes
Publisher: First Second
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2020-08-18
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1250801621

A teenager is pulled back in time to witness her grandmother's experiences in World War II-era Japanese internment camps in Displacement, a historical graphic novel from Kiku Hughes. Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II. These displacements keep occurring until Kiku finds herself "stuck" back in time. Living alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, Kiku gets the education she never received in history class. She witnesses the lives of Japanese-Americans who were denied their civil liberties and suffered greatly, but managed to cultivate community and commit acts of resistance in order to survive. Kiku Hughes weaves a riveting, bittersweet tale that highlights the intergenerational impact and power of memory.

Octavia E. Butler: Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories (LOA #338)

Octavia E. Butler: Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories (LOA #338)
Author: Octavia Butler
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021-01-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1598536753

The definitive edition of the complete works of the "grand dame" of American science fiction begins with this volume gathering two novels and her collected stories An original and eerily prophetic writer, Octavia E. Butler used the conventions of science fiction to explore the dangerous legacy of racism in America in harrowingly personal terms. She broke new ground with books that featured complex Black female protagonists—“I wrote myself in,” she would later recall—establishing herself as one of thepioneers of the Afrofuturist aesthetic. In 1995 she became the first science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, in recognition of her achievement in creating new aspirations for the genre and for American literature. This first volume in the Library of America edition of Butler’s collected works opens with her masterpiece, Kindred, one of the landmark American novels of the last half century. Its heroine, Dana, a Black woman, is pulled back and forth between the present and the pre–Civil War past, where she finds herself enslaved on the plantation of a white ancestor whose life she must save to preserve her own. In Fledgling, an amnesiac discovers that she is a vampire, with a difference: she is a new, experimental birth with brown skin, giving her the fearful ability to go out in sunlight. Rounding out the volume are eight short stories and five essays—including two never before collected, plus a newly researched chronology of Butler’s life and career and helpful explanatory notes prepared by scholar Gerry Canavan. Butler’s friend, the writer and editor Nisi Shawl, provides an introduction.

The New Moon's Arms

The New Moon's Arms
Author: Nalo Hopkinson
Publisher: Grand Central Pub
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2007-02-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0446576913

"A mainstream magical realism novel set in the Caribbean on the fictional island of Dolorosse. It tells the story of a 50-something grandmother whose mother disappeared when she was a teenager and whose father has just passed away as she begins menopause.

Black Comix

Black Comix
Author: Damian Duffy
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010
Genre: African American cartoonists
ISBN: 9780984190652

The immense popularity of comics and graphic novels cannot be ignored. But in light of the comics boom that has taken place over the past 10 years, the artists, writers and publishers that make up the vibrant African American independent comics community have remained relatively unknown - until now. Black Comix brings together an unprecedented collection of largely unheard of, and undeniably masterful, comics art while also framing the work of these men and women in a broader historical and cultural context. With a foreword by Keith Knight and over 50 contributors, including Phonzie Davis, Jan-Michael Franklin, Frances Liddell, Kenjji Marshall, Lance Tooks, Rob Stull, Ashley A. Woods and many, more, the cross section of comics genres represented includes manga, superheroes, humor, history, science fiction and fantasy. This book is a must-have for comics readers.

The Book of Three

The Book of Three
Author: Lloyd Alexander
Publisher: Usborne Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2014-11-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1409590798

Taran is desperate for adventure. Being a lowly Assistant Pig-Keeper just isn't exciting. That is, until the magical pig, Hen Wen, disappears and Taran embarks on a death-defying quest to save her from the evil Horned King. His perilous adventures bring Taran many new friends: an irritable dwarf, an impulsive bard, a strange hairy beast and the hot-headed Princess Eilonwy. Together, they face many dangers, from the deathless Cauldron-Born warriors, dragons, witches and the terrifying Horned King himself. Taran learns much about his identity, but the mysterious Book of Three is yet to reveal his true destiny. "Lloyd Alexander is the true High King of fantasy." - Garth Nix