The latest hot trend for novelists is not to write novels at all: it's writing comic books . Lately, major novelists from Stephen King to Michael Chabon to Jodi Picoult are delving into the world of graphic novels. It's a very different way of writing. Instead of thinking in terms of sentences and grammar, writers have to learn to think visually and to give the illustrator something really interesting to draw.
[Jonathan] Lethem joins a growing list of novelists such as Stephen King and Michael Chabon, who have shifted to work on comic books as the medium gains critical and academic respect and becomes more mainstream.
Marvel contacted Lethem after his book "Fortress of Solitude," which had some comic-book reverence, and asked if he was interested in doing work in the medium, said Marvel publisher Dan Buckley.
"We wanted to see what he was interested in, and he brought it up immediately," Buckley said. "Bringing this kind of talent to the room is fantastic. He knows how to tell a story, and his perspective is different from traditional comic writers."
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"It was an interesting challenge," Lethem said. "One of the things I concluded very quickly was that it's not a written form. My primary task was to provide amazing things for artists to draw."
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Bestselling writer of "Nineteen Minutes," Jodi Picoult is the current author of the legendary Wonder Woman series at DC. She is only the second woman to ever write the series in its more than 60-year-old history. The biggest challenge for Picoult was tethering the character's lengthy past with contemporary issues and her own writing style.
"You don't want to go down in history as the one who ruined Wonder Woman," she said. "She comes with a history, and a very loyal fan base that doesn't want to see you mess around."
Other authors turned their creations into comic-book heroes.
Chabon, who wrote about cartoonists in his Pulitzer-prize winning novel "The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay," chose to turn the novel's cartoon "The Escapist" into a real graphic novel for Dark Horse Comics. His editor, Diana Schutz, helped him modify his thinking from chapters and sentences to panels. Schutz, a longtime editor, also works with authors Glen David Gold and Chris Offutt.
She said there are tremendous differences in the mediums, and writers often aren't used to thinking about the presentation of a story or the physical representation of their characters. But it can be taught.
"A good writer is a good writer," she said. "It really is just a matter of coming to grips with the different form, the different structure of the medium. Some novelists don't make a successful transition into writing screenplays, that doesn't mean they're not good. It means they can't think pictures very well. And comics are basically still movies."
We feel sure that Jodi won't ruin Wonder Woman. In fact, we think she'll do a fabulous job.
