The Graphic Cannon Volume 3

I looked at the contents table and saw Rudyard Kipling’s If. Drawn to it I was, because I’d gone to middle school in the UK and was schooled on Kipling’s verse (not as popular in the USA.) The chapter was shocking; it was illustrated with Frank Hansen’s wild cartooning, like something out f Ren & Stimpy. His wild style is the opposite what Kipling, a paternalistic upper-class English imperialist, would want to illustrate his writing. The teacher who drilled Kipling into me was your typical Wackford Squeers kind of Englishman, and I would’ve loved to show him this version of his idol’s poem. It would’ve ruined his day.

The Graphic Canon is both reverent & irreverent, supportive & subversive. Over 70 stories, essays, excerpts, and poems, are illustrated by some of today’s most lauded cartoonists. There is no greater tribute than this, for who could illustrate Jean Paul Sartre’s work than Robert Crumb, the great American weirdo and Francophile? For Kafka’s story, Sikoryak turns Metamorphosis into a Peanuts parody called Good Ol’ Gregor Brown, starring Charlie Brown as the perplexed Gregor Samsa and Lucy as his sister Grete. He wakes up to find himself turned into a giant cockroach, and says “good grief, what’s happened to me?”

But I must also confess a slight disappointment. Animal Farm is illustrated with photo collages, and it lends an air of disturbing, creepy imagery, but it falls short. I would love to see Dave McKean illustrate animal farm with his bizarre collages, as he did a great job with Mister Punch back in 1995. Other than that, the book is great. There’s a version of The Woman From Wood’s Edge by Edna St. Vincent Millay, charmingly illustrated by Jay Kolitsky, and it evokes Victorian British innocence with just the right amount of naughty rebelliousness.