Cabell Comics?

With the release of the new media type feature in LT, I was listed as having four comic books. (I have far more than that, but I haven't actually cataloged them!)

It turned out that all four were old hardcover Cabells without ISBNs. Did anyone else encounter this phenomenon?

Also: Cabell seems uniquely unsuited to "graphic novel" adaptation. After the Ballantine Adult Fantasy editions came out, I suppose someone considered the possibility for a moment ('twas the age of Conan and LotR knockoff comics, after all) and quickly abandoned it. Or am I wrong, and there's actually a Figures of Earth comic book out there somewhere? After all, illustrators have certainly had a high time with Cabell's work.

Some of my many pre-isbn books came up as ebooks or paper instedda cloth, but haven't noticed any wrong Cabells yet.

As to comix, weren't some of the BAF cover artists also comics artists? Perhaps LT's wild-guess-algorithm was misled by that.

Missed this when originally posted: have never seen but would love to read a Cabell comic. And the wealth of short stories would seem a great source for such an adaptation.

Yikes. I cannot think of a worse idea. The charm of
Cabell lies in words, turn of phrase, and the rhythm of the prose. Jettisoning most of that to make room for drawings?

I am obviously old school.

>4 wirkman: I heartily agree.

But I think of Gaiman and Sandman, and many other comics which actually rely heavily on the word, to their advantage. It's a different approach. If Cabell were alive, I'd focus on his new work. Lacking that, a new adaptation could find new followers.

And I'd prefer a comic to a movie-length film adaptation, to be sure.

I believe Gaiman, who is a major Cabell fan, slides a bit of Cabell reference into the Sandman series...

He does. One obvious example is the section of the library where librarian Lucien keeps "novels their authors never wrote ... except in dreams":



But I remember there were other small things.

Linda Medley's comic book series "Castle Waiting" is a comedic inverted fairy tale in a medieval setting with plenty of eccentric nuns, imps, demons, horse-headed men and more. Author and artist, she started the series in 1996 as a self published venture. She moved through a number of publishing arrangements, some of the material has been reprinted or collected several times. By 2007 the story was 500 pages or longer. Linda was unfamiliar with Cabell, but I felt her work had a Cabellian tone, and her art, especially the creatures, reminded me of Frank C. Pape's illustrations. I knew her slightly from before and ran into her occasionally.

When I heard that she was to be in town for an event, I gave her HB copies of the Pape Jurgen and the High Place, saying I thought she would enjoy the stories and the art.

In 1998, a five page Castle Waiting story, "Hook, Line, and Sinker" was published by Dark Horse Comics in a 3 issue anthology series, "Scatterbrain." In 2001 the series and story was reprinted in a one volume hardcover. Two of the characters, the nun, Sister Peace, and Simon, strong, but gentle and none too smart, go fishing. On page 3, Sister Peace decides to relax for a "little reading" and pulls out her bible. She falls asleep and lets the bible slip, revealing a copy of Jurgen inside as the book she was really reading.

Linda later told me that she did the sequence as a thank you for the Cabell/Pape books.

>10 dscottn:
Sweet story.

>12 Crypto-Willobie:

Very cool...

>9 rainlights:

Gaiman's imaginary title joins Cabell and Kenneth Anger. Neat trick.

>13 paradoxosalpha: I noticed that. Sounds good to me. I enjoy Cabell's non-fiction and that book would be spectacular.

The bookshelf image sent me to the Evolution of the Biography appendix in Townsend of Lichfield to see if John Charteris' unusual library might have first been discussed by Cabell in the late 1890's. None of the titles of the 7 essays incorporated into Beyond Life would seem to indicate that.

Max Beerbohm's 1914 essay "Books Within Books" dealt with a similar concept, which Beerbohm credits to Charles Lamb, authors and books which only exist within books. Charteris and Beerbohm both have the writing af Arthur Pendennis. That essay was collected in 1921 in "And Even Now" which does not seem to have been in Cabell's Beerbohm collection.

I have some books inspired by Kenneth Anger, Television Babylon and Rock and Roll Babylon, that were quite fun to read, but neither of them have a Jayne Mansfield cover or something else to rev up the hormones.

I have Hollywood Babylon and its sequel, and I briefly met Anger in person once when he was visiting a friend of mine, back when I lived in Texas.

>15 paradoxosalpha: My Hollywood Babylon II disappeared out of the collection years ago. I'd been trying to remember the cover without cheating, but gave up and looked. I would rather see young Liz overflowing her top, than fat Liz sitting.

Guess I have a "trashy mind and gutter sensibilities" to have enjoyed those books so much. Looks like Kenneth Anger is still alive at 93.