epistolary comic books and books

June 15, 2006 11:08 PM

Has anyone done an epistolary comic book? It's not obvious to me how such a project could work and I'm interested in seeing what, if anything, artists have done with the form. I'm also interested in recommendations for good epistolary novels. I've already looked at the wikipedia page on epistolary novels and I plan to read some of the novels mentioned there.
posted by rdr to media & arts (7 comments total)

I don't know about an epistolary comic book, but the Griffin and Sabine series is certainly different. I enjoyed it.
posted by grouse at 11:41 PM on June 15, 2006

One fascinating book in the Young Adult genre would be "Letters From The Inside" by John Marsden, about two pen-pals, one of whose letters are untruthful, and the painful process of the truth coming out.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 2:31 AM on June 16, 2006

Some individual issues within ongoing series have been done as such, but I don't recall an entire series in epistolary format. My memory is flaky, but I'm inclined to say that Wonder Woman #46 (1990) and definitely New Teen Titans #20 (1982) are examples. Classics Illustrated, I'm just betting, never adapted Pamela.
posted by kimota at 5:08 AM on June 16, 2006

The "Expo 2000" comic anthology has one short comic the text of which is drawn from a seventeenth century letter from a North American colonist to back home. I'd check for more details but my stuff is all boxed up.
posted by yesno at 5:15 AM on June 16, 2006

Be My Knife (epistolary novel) by David Grossman: a man who glimpses an unknown woman at a class reunion begins a completely honest correspondance with her on the understanding that they will never meet. Doesn't sound like it would work, but it did for me.

Also, although I haven't read it, The Locklear Letters looks amusing.
posted by sfkiddo at 8:16 AM on June 16, 2006

You probably should have included a definition link in your question.

Lots of marvel and DC comics have done it, but it isn't something I would have cared much about when I was reading a lot of comics. Also, I don't know what formal requirements there might be (does a comic in a comic qualify?), so specifics are hard. I'm sure I've read a mutant book that was written as a letter home about an adventure, for example.

I'm thinking of one involving Colossus, Kitty Pride, or Illyana? Also, one involving an early New Mutant, like Sunspot or Magma..
posted by Chuckles at 8:20 AM on June 16, 2006

Alison Bechdel's Fun Home is not entirely epistolary -- but it does include quite a few letters, diary entries, photos, and so on. (Yes, in comic form.) I highly recommend it.
posted by Margalo Epps at 11:43 AM on June 16, 2006