Autopsie einer Graphic Novel: Dostoevskijs Prestuplenie i nakazanie (1866) in der Adaption von Alain Korkos und David Zane Mairowitz (2008)

Abstract

Summary This study offers a comprehensive comparative analysis between F. M. Dostoevskij’s classic Prestuplenie i nakazanie (PSS 6, 1973) and the black-and-white adaptation Crime and Punishment created by Alain Korkos and David Zane Mairowitz (2008). According to author and artist, the adaptation is meant for recipients acquainted with the novel and first readers of the graphic novel alike. With 417 pages of close-printed canonic text turned into a picture-dominated graphic novel of 118 pages, the adaptation – paying attention to the sequence of crucial fictional scenes – follows the storyline from the beginning of the canonic text to the Epilogue. About 95 % of the precisely and densely formulated verbal material contained in captions can easily be traced back to Dostoevskij’s classic. In this respect, the adaptation is „true to the source material“ (Kick 2012). However, as large portions of text concerning Sonja or Sonja and Raskol’nikov are – discernibly purposefully – eliminated, the adaptation turns out to be a revised version of the canonic novel. E.g., Sonja neither reads the Lazarus-chapter to Raskol’nikov nor follows him to Siberia. In contrast to Sonja, Raskol’nikov – with his emotional-mental instability, rebellion against the state of the world, self-authorization to commit crimes – is represented in accordance with the source text. The hermeneutic gain caused through verbal-pictorial reproduction of the classic text – i. e. through meaningful handling of panels and graphic design within the panels – is significantly enlarged through verbal-pictorial material not inspired by the classic text, e. g. a poster showing Edvard Munch’s graphics The Cry. In view of the 21st century’s preference for visual and multimedial presentation, the study encourages the coexistence and ‚co-reception‘ of the literary classic and the graphic novel as well as further forms of cultural processing.