French Literature Reviews - 2026

É. Deprêtre, G. A. Duarte (eds.), Transmediality, Comics & Adaptation
Other Literary Studies

Transmediality, Comics and Adaptation

Edited by Évelyne Deprêtre and German A. Duarte

Presses universitaires Blaise Pascal, Clermont-Ferrand — "Graphèmes" Series

Published: March 21, 2019

EAN13: 9782845168275 / Price (incl. tax): €26.50

Transmedia and adaptive processes within the current media landscape form the core of this volume. On the one hand, the aim is to situate adaptive processes within a technological context that, by its very nature, generates forms of adaptation daily, often even inadvertently. On the other hand, the book seeks to shed light not only on the phenomenon of transmediality but also on the collectivization of the narrative act that it increasingly drives. Yet, this phenomenon seems to have remained in the background of the media landscape over the past decade. Bridging these two focal points as the pivotal axis of this collaboration is an analysis of the relationships between the medium of comics and the broader media universe. Indeed, the editors argue that comics represent a unique medium for constructing highly specific narrative spaces, and their study, contextualized within the digital era, opens up essential pathways for better understanding and anticipating how digital narrative spaces will be built in the near future.

As such, this rich collective work stands as one of the very first to be entirely devoted to this subject. Divided into two parts—the first addressing literary adaptations into comics, and the second cinematic adaptations of comics—it combines theoretical approaches with analyses of specific works, offering a gateway both to a cultural practice in perpetual transformation and to a burgeoning field of research.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Surveying the Transmedia and Adaptive Fields
Évelyne Deprêtre, German A. Duarte

Part 1: Intermediality, Technology, and Narrative Spaces

1. Why Transmediality?
Sémir Badir

2. Transmediality or Fractality? The Narrative Act in the Digital Context
German A. Duarte

3. Transmediality or the Adventure of the Frame
Lucie Roy

Part 2: Adaptation, Literature, and Comics

4. Adaptation and Return in Jean Harambat's Ulysses
Jean-Bernard Cheymol

5. Adapting Sade into Comics: From the Intermedial to the Transmedial
Olivier Delers

6. Cecil and Luc Brunschwig's Series Holmes (1854/†1891?): Adaptation and Cultural Reconfiguration
Christophe Gelly

7. Kafka in Panels: A Comparative Analysis of Comic Book Adaptations of The Metamorphosis
Juan Alberto Conde

8. What Drawing Reveals About Writing: Technological Reflexivity in Olivier Deprez's Adaptations of Kafka's The Castle
Jean-Charles Andrieu de Levis

9. Muñoz Meets Camus with The Stranger: The Novel Reinterpreted by the Illustrator. A Limiting Case of Adaptation
Évelyne Deprêtre

Part 3: Reportage Comics, Biography, and Mechanisms of Film Adaptation

10. Transmediations in Crisis: On La Fantaisie des Dieux as Fantasy and the Expansion of Worlds
Alain Agnessan

11. Interpretive Paradigms Regarding Adaptation: The Case of Jiro Taniguchi's Seton: The Traveling Naturalist
Karine Gendron

12. The Graphic Third in the Cinematic Adaptation of Literature: The Case of Bruno Schulz and Wojciech Has's Film The Hour-Glass Sanatorium (1973)
Jessy Neau

Part 4: Adaptation, Transmedia, Comic Books, and Audiovisual Media

13. Shot-for-Shot Adaptation Put to the Test of "Media Specificity": Sin City (Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, 2005) and Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009)
David Roche

14. The Dark Knight: Narrative Fragments as Material for Adaptation
Guillaume Labrude

15. X-Men: Apocalypse: Between Transmedia Narration and Transmedia Character
Amélie Lemieux

Part 5: Transmedia, Manga, Fandom, and the Superhero Figure in World-Making

16. Star Wars Comics and the Paradoxes of Fidelity
Nicolas Labarre

17. The Transverse Lives of Superheroes: Unadapted Popular Culture
Raphaël Faon

18. The Metamorphoses of Transmedia Storytelling: Dragon Ball Manga, Anime, and Anime Comics
Bounthavy Suvilay

The study of transmediality examines how narratives circulate across diverse media platforms, a process that has gained momentum with the rise of digital technologies. Within the humanities, this field investigates the shift toward interconnected narrative environments. This volume situates adaptive processes within a technological landscape that generates new narrative forms, focusing on the medium of comics and its relationship to the broader media universe. Readers interested in the evolution of contemporary media and the structural relationships between graphic storytelling and other cultural formats may find this collection relevant.

Adaptation studies have long analyzed the migration of stories between literature, film, and visual arts, often emphasizing the transformation of narrative spaces. In this context, comics serve as a case study for understanding how visual and textual elements interact. The contributions in this volume address the adaptation of literary and cinematic works into graphic formats, exploring the implications of transmedia storytelling. By combining theoretical frameworks with specific case studies, the work examines the reconfiguration of cultural practices within the current media environment.