Comics publisher Boom! Studios plans to release an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five this September. The company is producing the adaptation with the help of Eisner Award-winning writer Ryan North (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, How To Invent Everything: A Survival Guide For The Stranded Time Traveler) and Eisner-nominated artist Albert Monteys (Universe!), as well as color from artist Ricard Zaplana.
The 1969 original work blends a darkly funny, autobiographical perspective on World War II with mind-bending science fiction elements that provide a glowing alien mirror into the bleakest corners of the human soul. The protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, is a prisoner of war who becomes “unstuck in time”. This phenomenon leads him to relive the worst moments of his life, learn the moment of his own death, meets extraterrestrial beings who experience time as one contiguous volume, and become personally acquainted with the unrelenting absurdity of human existence.
THR provides the cover art and release date for the upcoming graphic novel, following a previous announcement that included only a preview page. In an interview with Stars and Stripes, North describes the challenge of adapting Vonnegut’s most famous work as harder than the typical adaptation, both because he “really love[s] the book” and because of the “thought and attention” of trying to maintain the same level of quality as the source material. In transplanting the work to a visual medium, the creative team uses narration boxes inventively and reproduces some of the most verbose parts of the novel using intricate sight gags.
North is no stranger to adapting classics; the author previously developed To Be or Not To Be, a prose novel that reimagines Hamlet in the style of the “choose your own adventure” books that were popular with kids in the 80s and 90s. In TBoNTB, readers are given the choice of several characters and can either dutifully reenact the original narrative or jump the rails and yell at Hamlet’s mom, fight pirates, or otherwise assert their agency over the tragic downward spiral of the melancholy Danes, often while prodding mirthfully at antiquated or contrived dramatic beats. While Slaughterhouse-Five also employs nonlinear storytelling, and Stripes’ previews suggest that slight changes to the work have been made to update it factually and culturally, North’s passion for Vonnegut’s most well-known creation will likely show through in the form of a much more reverent approach to the bleakly humanist adventure. Also, don’t expect to have any control over Billy’s life. Certainly not any more than he did.
Slaughterhouse-Five: or, The Children’s Crusade will be available from your local comic book store on September 9th, 2020, as well as digitally, and will be available from mass-market bookstores on September 15th, 2020. Boom! is publishing the graphic novel via its Archaia imprint, known for works including Jim Henson sequel Power of the Dark Crystal and the Mouse Guard series which was recently in the works as a canceled film project.
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Source: THR
