Information about the author:
Elmira V. Vasileva
Elmira V. Vasileva, PhD in Philology, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Foreign Languages, Saint-Petersburg State Forest Technical University named after S.M. Kirov, Institutsky lane, 5, 194021 St. Petersburg, Russia.
E-mail:
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4195-5658
Abstract:
The article highlights three principal aspects of the reception of Gothic novel poetics in comics and graphic novels. In the first section, the author discusses the visualization of Gothic aesthetics as depicted in DC Comics' Batman stories. It concludes that these comics “assimilate” the Gothic chronotope, incorporating themes of mystery, insanity, and duality, while also utilizing the complex characterization of the hero that is characteristic of the late Gothic tradition. The second part analyzes the reception of plots from three of the most famous texts in the Gothic canon: M. Shelley’s Frankenstein, R.L. Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and B. Stoker’s Dracula, as they appeared in American superhero comics of the 1960s and 1970s. The final section offers an analysis of three graphic adaptations of Frankenstein: an adaptation-retelling by G. Bess, an adaptation-sequel titled Frankenstein: Alive! Alive! by S. Niles and B. Wrightson, and a fantasy adaptation titled Victor LaValle's Destroyer by Victor LaValle, in which the conflicts inspired by the original text are reimagined in a near-future setting.
