Franz Kafka in the Comic. Description of some Examples

Abstract

Franz Kafka is considered to be the author of literature that is difficult to read, the value of which is recognized mainly by a narrow circle of experts. However, looking at some aspects of contemporary and popular culture, and especially the presence of Kafka's works in comics, one needs to verify the traditional belief in the elitism of this prose. David Zane Mairowitz (1943-) published in 1993, together with the cartoonist Robert Crumb, the graphic book “Kafka for Beginners”, in some editions known as “Introducing Kafka”. As for the Mairowitz / Cramb graphic book, it contains several graphic components: comic adaptations of some of Kafka's most famous works, including the stories “The Metamorhosis”, “The Penal Colony” or “The Judgment”, as well as briefly listed plots of three novels: “The America”, “The Trial” and “The Castle”. In the work of Mairowitz / Cramb, we also find the most important biographical facts of Kafka, which are partly illustrated with an academic essay, and partly with comic-like frames with sequences of biographical events given in text frames. The success of publishing houses with a comic presentation of fragments of Kafka's works prompted David Zane Mairowitz to develop the text for the graphic novel entitled “The Castle” (2013), based on the novel of the same name. The author of the drawings for this publication was the Czech artist and musician Jaromír Švejdík, using the pseudonym Jaromír 99. Mairowitz and Jaromir's a composition is another act of establishing Kafka's work in the world of comics. In “The Castle”, however, the variety of comic techniques was limited to a monochrome form of drawing and paper cutouts. The presence of Kafka in comics results from the inclusive nature of popular culture, whose authors are able to use for their own purposes the sublime art of modern prose. As a result, Kafka's work becomes a sign of the times of modernism, an image of the phenomena of human alienation in the reality of state offices or corporate systems.