If there is a single,
uniting irrefutable factor that defines all adventure gamers, it
is that we all share a love of reading. We devour
any and all reading material. Classic literature, horror novels,
comic books – it doesn’t matter,
we love to read

But there is even another, more esoteric, factor that defines the
adventure genre for we are the only group of gamers who actually
get excited when it is announced that a work of classic literature
is to be developed as an adventure game.

A new Sherlock Holmes
adaptation, Agatha
Christie’s And Then
There Were None, Jules Verne’s Journey to the
Center of the Earth – the gaming community as a whole yawns, but adventure
gamers are ecstatic for we are literary gaming geeks of the highest
magnitude.

So it is that I was thrilled
to learn of a relatively new series of graphic novels based on
the collected works of well-known (and
sometimes not so well-known) authors. Graphic
Classics is an extension
of Rosebud – a magazine devoted to creative prose, poetry and
visual art – and the literary pedigree is obvious.

Those who have fond memories
of Classics
Illustrated will immediately recognize the format,
but whereas an issue of ‘Classics Illustrated’ was
a color comic book that usually only featured one story drawn by
a single artist, each Graphic
Classics is 144 page oversize glossy
soft-cover that spotlights several different black-and-white stories
by the same author. The exceptions are special issues devoted to
a specific subject, such as Horror
Classics or Adventure
Classics – that feature adaptations from several different authors on the
same theme and are reminiscent of Warren Publishing’s Creepy & Eerie
magazines. Each story is illustrated – or as artist R. Tommaso so
wonderfully labels it, ‘pictated’ – by a different
artist who brings his own unique style to the telling.

So what we are treated
to are not only the illustrated works of such luminaries as Edgar
Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and Mark Twain,
but also lesser read authors such as Rafael Sabatini, Johnston McCulley
(the creator of Zorro) and W.W. Jacobs (who, as I’m sure you
remember, wrote the lingeringly eerie ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ which
is not only one of the most haunting stories ever written, but also
served as the springboard for horror tales in many of William
M. Gaines E.C. comics).

Most interestingly though
is that while the tales that the featured author is most remembered
for are usually included, the editors have
also wisely chosen to include many lesser known stories by the same
author. So while we can relive Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’, we are also introduced
to ‘The Bottle Imp’. Or how about a collection of stories
by Arthur Conan Doyle that don’t feature his legendary Sherlock
Holmes character? Bram Stoker’s Dracula is represented by a
collection of story highlights as envisioned by sundry artists, but
it was this volume that also introduced me to the Stoker’s
nifty ‘Torture Tower’ and this is what ultimately makes
the Graphic Classics so special – each volume contains at least
one story that will be unfamiliar to even the most voracious reader.

The Graphic
Classics collection
is now thirteen in number (Several of the more popular authors
such as H.P. Lovecraft, Poe & Stoker
are out-of-print, but copies can be found on Ebay). The series had
an inconspicuous beginning with a collection of Edgar Allen Poe stories
that relied too much on text and not enough on graphics. But the
editor – apparently recognizing that the reader had been shorted
on the ‘Graphic’ promise – was quick to reissue an updated
second edition that featured 80 new pages of illustrated Poe (tip
of the hat to multi-talented illustrator/editor Tom Pomplun for his
homage to Vincent
Price’s atmospheric Roger Corman films).

By volume three’s H. G. Wells adaptations, it seemed that
the editor was more willing to risk what could have been audacious
liberties and so instead of a flat out interpretation of War of the
Worlds, we instead are treated to a superb adaptation of the infamous
War of the Worlds Halloween radio broadcast from Orson
Welles’ Mercury
Theatre. Other volumes often feature snippets based on key moments
in the featured author’s life – or in Poe’s case
death – and it is these small touches that elevate the Graphic
Classics above other graphic novels.

But of course, we must
have our adventure connection and there are many such as H.G. Welles’ (sic) ‘The Time Machine’,
which many of you will fondly remember from our not-too-sublime review.
Or how about Poe’s Tell Tale Heart which was such a large part
of JA Hall of Fame entry The Dark Eye. There are others, but what
struck me most while reading some of these classic stories was how
easily they could be adapted as an adventure game.

If I sound like a paid
huckster for the Graphic Classics, believe me I am not, but it
is difficult to not be enthusiastic about such
quality, especially when each volume can be had for only $11.95 or
less. I would though like to offer one suggestion for a future volume
of Graphics Classics – how cool would it be to have illustrated
versions of classic adventure games?! Sanitarium, Roberta Williams
Phantasmagoria, Jane Jensen’s Sins
of the Fathers, Amber –
there is a great, untapped opportunity waiting for a publisher willing
to take a chance by thinking outside the box.