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In 1995, Kuper adapted nine stories from the Czech author Franz Kafka into a graphic novel. 10 years later NBM is releasing a new edition of this book which has sparked an entire comic book market dedicated to adapting the work of traditional literature into sequential art. The nine stories contained were short stories that owed much to poetry, as they were evocative, instead of realist.
Kafka’s stories are bleak and his characters through their own means are often the cause of their own demise. It’s as if they cannot fight against the tide that will take them to their inevitable doom. Instead, they revel in the pain and impossible situations. Kuper follows the same rule set by Kafka by showing characters who could escape, but don’t. For example, in A Hunger Artist, the skinny fasting artist could easily escape from his cage. He is so thin, he could fit between the iron bars. Yet he willingly stays.
The problem with adapting Kafka and aiming for masterful storytelling is that it is difficult to keep up the inventiveness required to tell such a story, when it is already complete in itself with words carefully pondered, years ago. For example in A Little Fable, the beginning sequences and pages’ composition expose the best techniques available to expert comic book artists to visually illustrate a story. Yet, in a few short pages next, there is not the same level of genius to the pages and although untrained critics, which have lauded this book for years think Kuper is marvellous, a good eye for design can uncover many of his compositions’ weaknesses.
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