Damian Duffy’s and John Jennings’s, Essay Example

Response Letter to “Damian Duffy’s and John Jennings’s” “Graphic Novel Adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Kindred”

“Dear Dr. Damian Duffy and John Jennings:”

I want to show my gratitude through this letter, and acclaim of your work with the “graphic novel adaptation of Octavia Butler’s science-fiction-postmodern-slave-narrative, Kindred.” I find your work to be comprehensive and well put. It goes beyond the expected walls of literature and offers close insight and reviews of the work in the study. Your thoughts and takes on Kindred are a marvel to any person, myself included, who loves literature and specifically the amazing work of Octavia Butler. It goes beyond thought, your work – well representing the original work and reviews by other scholars. Yours is a work to be praised and acclaimed. I find it compelling how you have, in a way, summarized Octavia’s work in a simple way, yet still understandable holds weight, and are informative.

I appreciate your goals for the work and notions presented therein. Representation and cautious portrayal of characters such as Dana is done in maybe one of the best ways. I find your work intriguing, interesting, and adapting simultaneously, offering a view and sense of reflection to any reader who goes through the read. The delivery is impeccable and done to the highest standards. The affluence in the review combines elements of literature, and, going through it, I feel a sense of direction and understanding towards the work and towards Octavia’s work also. How you go into details even with terms and meanings is a character that I adore and praise for its usefulness and practicability when it comes to reviewing a literal work.

I am inclined and adore your use of other scholars’ views and expressions of Butler’s Kindred as they offer more to work and point out both similar and different aspects of this work, which in turn gives more attention and understanding of the science-fiction novel. Subsequently, one grasps the information in the novel from a wider and broader perspective, offering more understanding and contemplation of the novel. Getting other novelists and scholars to comment about Kindred and your adaptation to the science-fiction-postmodern-slave-narrative offers a reader and fan like me a chance to dive deeper into the discussed issues, widening my views and perspectives on the matter. It is also beneficial that I got to have a scope of different meanings and forms, advice, and reviews from these scholars, as this has shaped my response to the book, and I find it comforting and appealing that other people, besides myself, have other views and opinions on this narrative. The mentioned remarks may not necessarily agree fully with mine or be in unison with what I think, but are all conclusively similar-in, agreeing that this work is one of a kind and bears messages and similarities to present and past life experiences and times.

It is appealing and beautiful what you have done to the narrative, offering another view and way of looking at things and literature. Your adaptation goes beyond simplicity yet embraces the very same thing, just in a different manner. As Okorafor mentions that Duffy and Jennings are “visual mad scientists,” further stating that “the very medium of the graphic novel already electrifies words and images. Tell one of Octavia Butler’s most immersive, relatable tales through this medium, and you have the fire.” I find this exciting and futuristic, what you have done, Okorafor seemingly agreeing as well, by stating, “this is an exciting moment in storytelling (Hampton et al., 2020).” This adaptation elicits excitement and propels the world of comics further, paying tribute and homage to the rising black comix and other great publications like this. The graphic novel adaptation does a good job at explaining and mentioning parts in the book that are instrumental and figurative- leading to other aspects and meanings.

The graphic novel adaptation is impressive in expressing the lasting effects of slavery in the modern world. An example is the depiction of colors in sepia tones which Duffy comments on: “We had this idea of flipping the way comics and movies often show the past as desaturated and the present day in full color. Because in the novel, Dana and Kevin both describe the 1970s as seeming somehow ‘soft,’ less visceral, less real than the 1800s.” As mentioned in the article, the artworks displayed in Jennings’s drawings of black and white and smudgy appearances display the incomplete American project’s nature due to the patrimony of slavery in today’s world (Hampton et al., 2020). Your use of effective words and sounds to depict the forms of slavery is also a noteworthy comment.

Even so, I would like to share my concern about the display of the hero in this work. I think it would be effective to display the hero of the narrative on a more personal level and aspect-filled directive. It would help to identify why, I think, Dana is mentioned as a hero, her contributions, confines, and competencies as a hero. It would help to create this picture even to the reader of your work, to grasp the whole concept of Butler and her aim of the narrative. There is an insightful mention of Dana and various examples of her from the narrative, but I would mention this to be shallow. Digging into more depth, I feel, would help paint the picture well, plus highlight the aspects of the narrative, including themes, messages, and concepts. The context of the narrative features and evolves around the lady superhero and her encounters in the sci-fi world. Getting into more details would help build the picture and create a sense of familiarity plus knowledge on the narrative to readers like me of your graphic novel adaptation.

According to my insight, it would also help to mention and further the aspect of slavery as discussed in the narrative. Slavery comes across as a vital theme and aspect in the narrative, and mentioning it in a broad aspect would help create the mind-environment and image to a reader like me. I view it would help to mention slavery in broader aspects, such as explaining it at the time and painting a near-perfect of setting at the time in which this narrative is based on. Doing so will influence the reader to grasp and capture the contents of the narrative, and one would understand why you came up with this adaptation and the kind of environment ringing around both the narrative and your adaptation. Clarity is among the cards on the table to be grasped and understood when mentioning slavery and going into appropriate depth of covering this aspect in your review and adaptation. Douglass claims, “From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom…I set out with high hope and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read (Hampton et al., 2020).”

Beyond doubt and to no surprise, your review and adaptation are well-informed, researched, and delivered just right. I get to learn of issues way beyond the simple stories and narratives mentioned in the narrative, issues of life, issues of living, issues of the past, present, and future. Your work provides a useful layer of information and needed insight to Butler’s Kindred as it goes beyond literature, touching the very realms of life. I am grateful and thankful and will recommend this to my friends as well. Yours is a work of excellence. Thank you.

Work Cited

Hampton, Gregory J., and Kendra R. Parker, eds. The Bloomsbury Handbook to Octavia E. Butler. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.