Happy Anniversary!

Feb 2021 is the 100th Anniversary of the publication of Figures of Earth
http://www.silverstallion.karkeeweb.com/bibliography/manuel/figures_earth/foe_a1...

On a not-entirely unrelated note:

The new IP-less year is 1925. Cabell’s Figures of Earth and The High Place are public domain, but next year The Silver Stallion and The Music from Behind the Moon go free.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/02/04/opinion/after-95-years-writers-finally-ge...

Yay! more crappy PDF editions of our favorite books!

>3 Crypto-Willobie:

Just my reaction, I'm afraid. One might hope that new issuances of texts in public domain would work to distinguish themselves with capable editions or nice bindings. But in my experience, they mostly turn out like inferior pirate editions. The problem isn't peculiar to Cabell, and if anything is predictably worse for authors whose books are harder to obtain in the secondary market.

>2 wirkman: Thank you for that article link.

>5 dscottn:, >2 wirkman:

The Globe article mentions in passing the opening to unlicensed graphic novel adaptations. With all the precedents for fine illustration, it seems like Cabell's work would be well suited to graphic novels in the right hands. Off the top of my head, I'm imagining chapters from The Silver Stallion treated by, say, P. Craig Russell. Are there any existing Cabell "comics" that I just don't know about?

I find it hard to imagine a successful Cabell graphic adaption since his excellence is so bound up with verbal texture.

Cabell into comics, animation and film is inherently difficult. Craig Russell is one of the few that might turn Cabell into a readable and worthwhile adaptation. He has been successful with Wilde and Wagner; Cabell does present some striking visual scenarios. Still his books rarely have a traditional action plot to portray. Figures, Stallion and Jurgen do all have parts that could work well in talented hands, or be disastrous. Domnei also. Gallantry and the other story collections could be mined for some short pieces. I think Heirs and Assigns, with Cabell adapting outside material, is the most promising of his writing to be adapted into other media.

Frazetta's 1975 illustrations for the Hobbit and LOTR show how even an enormously talented artist can be totally wrong for a project. https://comicsalliance.com/frank-frazetta-lord-of-the-rings-hobbit-illustrations...

I'd be interested in a graphic adaptation, but not one attempting (primarily) to capture the plot or the language. I think there's a lot to be gained from the recurring motifs of Cabellian Romance, the repetition of the Biography itself, the echoes and reflections evident throughout: across characters, across geographies, across times. It could highlight an important aspect of Cabell's work that isn't as readily obvious in the reading. So in some respect, more akin to a graphical representation of numerical data, than an attempt to film a book.

Russell could do well with that, though I'm familiar with his Gaiman collaborations, and don't know how he does when designing his own storyboarding and such.

The White Robe might make a good ‘graphic novel.’

A frolicsome werewolf, period costumes, religious satire, ironic violence, a big visual reveal ending. I think it could work.

>9 elenchus: Most of Russell's work, he does all the page design and visual adaptation. I recall Neil Gaiman writing when his Sandman collaboration with Russell was published, that it was first time he had worked with an artist without supplying a full script with panel descriptions. More the Marvel style, he supplied the story, P. Craig Russell did the layouts and art, then Neil did the dialog and captions. I tried to find the actual reference, but no luck so far.l

>12 dscottn: That anecdote might be part of my Sandman collection, in Gaiman's notes or introduction. It sounds familiar and it wouldn't be surprising if that's true, but I can't keep straight all the various collaborators on that series!