THE GRAPHIC CANON (Seven Stories Press) is a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind trilogy that brings classic literatures of the world together with legendary graphic artists and illustrators.
There are more than 130 illustrators represented and 190 literary works over three volumes��any newly commissioned, some hard to find��einterpreted here for readers and collectors of all
ages.
Volume 1�takes us on a visual tour from the earliest literature through the end of the 1700s. Along the way, we're treated to eye-popping renditions of the human race's greatest
epics:�Gilgamesh,�The Iliad,�The Odyssey�(in watercolors by Gareth Hinds),�The Aeneid,�Beowulf,�and�The Arabian Nights, plus later epics�The Divine
Comedy�and�The Canterbury Tales�(both by legendary illustrator and graphic designer Seymour Chwast),�Paradise Lost, and�Le Morte D'Arthur. Two of ancient Greece's
greatest plays are adapted��he tragedy�Medea�by Euripides and Tania Schrag's uninhibited rendering of the very bawdy comedy�Lysistrata�by Aristophanes (the text of which is still
censored in many textbooks). Also included is Robert Crumb's rarely-seen adaptation of James Boswell's�London Journal, filled with philosophical debate and lowbrow debauchery.
Religious literature is well-covered and well-illustrated, with the Books of Daniel and Esther from the Old Testament, Rick Geary's awe-inspiring new rendition of the Book of Revelation from
the�New Testament, the Tao te Ching, Rumi's Sufi poetry, Hinduism's�Mahabharata, and the Mayan holy book�Popol Vuh, illustrated by Roberta Gregory. The Eastern canon gets
its due, with�The Tale of Genji�(the world's first novel, done in full-page illustrations reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley), three poems from China's golden age of literature lovingly
drawn by pioneering underground comics artist Sharon Rudahl, the�Tibetan Book of the Dead, a Japanese Noh�play, and other works from Asia.
Two of Shakespeare's greatest plays (King Lear�and�A Midsummer Night's Dream) and two of his sonnets are here, as are Plato's�Symposium,�Gulliver's
Travels,�Candide,�A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Renaissance poetry of love and desire, and�Don Quixote�visualized by the legendary Will Eisner.
Some unexpected twists in this volume include a Native American folktale, an Incan play, Sappho's poetic fragments, bawdy essays by Benjamin Franklin, the love letters of Abelard and Heloise,
and the decadent French classic�Dangerous Liaisons, as illustrated by Molly
Crabapple.
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Edited by Russ Kick, The Graphic Canon is an extraordinary collection that will continue with Volume 2: "Kubla Khan" to the Bronte Sisters to The Picture of
Dorian Gray in Summer 2012, and Volume 3: From Heart of Darkness to Hemingway to Infinite Jest in Fall 2012. A boxed set of all three volumes will also be published in
Fall 2012.
