Jones: Keeper of the flame for Classics Illustrated
For more than 30 years, Little Rock writer William Bryan Jones, Jr. — known to friends and in early bylines as “Bill” — has been embarked on a work of cultural anthropology‚ that of telling the story of Classics Illustrated, originally Classics Comics, an American institution from the 1940s until the ’70s. The third edition of his definitive work “Classic Illustrated: A Cultural History,” has just been published by McFarland (mcfarlandbooks.com), an independent publisher of academic and general-interest nonfiction books that’s probably best known for their serious treatment of pop culture.
Between 2003 and 2014, he wrote more than 120 introductions or author biographies for the Toronto-based Jack Lake Productions which revived the Classics Illustrated series in the ’90s. Some of his introductions have appeared in British Classics Illustrated and in translation in Croatian and Indonesian editions.
He’s also the author of “Petit Jean: A Wilderness Adventure” (Plum House), which, in 2017, was co-recipient of the Arkansas Historical Association’s Susannah DeBlack Award for Best Book in Arkansas History for Young Readers. He has also written theater performance pieces and radio plays, as well as dozens if not hundreds of book and theater reviews, some for this newspaper.
In 2000, he organized and chaired the Little Rock component of “RLS 2000,” an international symposium celebrating the sesquicentennial of the birth of Robert Louis Stevenson; in 2003 he edited “Robert Louis Stevenson Reconsidered: New Critical Perspectives,” a compilation of essays that grew out of that event.
I first met Bill when he was the de facto arts editor of the alternative newspaper Spectrum; with Stephen Buel, Bill and I edited the collection “A Spectrum Reader” which was published by August House in 1991. He was one of the first friends I met when I moved to Little Rock in 1989.
We have talked causally about his work on Classics Illustrated’s history and cultural significance
With its more than 80 years of existence, Classics Illustrated showcases the work of generations of artists whose styles are as varied as the eras they represent. Rolland Livingstone, one of the earliest, was born in 1873 — three years before the Battle of the Little Bighorn — while Bill Sienkiewicz, who created a stunning reimagining of Moby-Dick in 1990 for a graphic-novel relaunch of the series, was born in 1958. It’s difficult to generalize about Classics Illustrated art, though some critics insist on making 1940s or ’50s CIs stand for the entire run.
— William Bryan Jones, Jr.
countless times over the years; I asked him to answer five questions about it for the newspaper.
Q. I was not into comic books very long, only for a couple of years in the mid-to late- ’60s, but I vividly recall a few of the Classic Illustrated titles I owned: “The Man in the Iron Mask,” “The Count of Monte Cristo” and, most vividly, “A Tale of Two Cities,” especially the final panels with Sydney Carton mounting the guillotine in place of Evremonde. (Because of your book, I know this was the 1956, Joe Orlando-drawn version of the novel; I’m not sure I ever saw an earlier version.) I imagine my experience is pretty representative of my generation, we all were familiar with the comics, though we may have treated them somewhat differently than Marvel and DC titles. There’s something about these images that imprint on us. Like a Shirelles’ song, they have the power to take us back through time. Is that how you came to write about them?
A: One of the things I kept rediscovering during the years I worked on the three editions of the Classics Illustrated book was how powerful the memories of these comics were for readers around the world. I met adult artists, writers, scholars and collectors, for whom specific titles and particular covers and panels continue to resonate.
For instance, an Australian scholar recalls being terrified by Alex Blum’s images of the tragic hero in “The Man Who Laughs.” Bruno Premiani’s illustrations of the fatal cultural clash between Aztecs and conquistadors in “The Conquest of Mexico” left a profound impression on a Danish physician. You and I share enduring responses to Joe Orlando’s depiction of Sydney Carton at the guillotine in “A Tale of Two Cities.”
Classics Illustrated artists, scriptwriters and editors awakened the imaginations of at least two generations of young readers, offering access to an impressive range of imaginative literature and historical narrative — subject, naturally, to the limitations of the mid-century canon. The 48-page CI adaptations introduced me to Shakespeare, Dumas, Wells and Twain. From the beginning, I wanted to tell the artists’ and writers’ stories, using their own words as much as possible before the memories of them faded.
For the first edition (2002), I was able to interview or correspond with surviving artists such as Rudolph Palais, Lou Cameron, George Evans and Gray Morrow. That volume was well-received on publication and introduced me to several figures in the Gilberton editorial and business departments, whose participation expanded the story I was able to tell. In the meantime, the Classics Illustrated series was revived with the original titles, first in Canada and then in Britain, and the new publications led to McFarland authorizing a second edition in 2011 to include recent developments.
Within the past few years, I’ve established contact with some CI artists’ children or grandchildren, as well as active contemporary artists who illustrated the 1990-91 graphic-novel adaptations. More sources on foreign Classics surfaced, and by 2021 McFarland decided that a third edition was justified, so here we are.
Q. My knowledge of comics in general and CI in particular is pretty shallow, but I would guess if we were to go looking for the roots of the so-called “graphic novel” we’d have to at least consider these adaptations of classic literature. As I understand it, most of the writers and illustrators who collaborated on these books were not necessarily working closely together and my sense is the art might have been seen as even more important than the text. How would you characterize the dynamic — maybe the tension — between the words and the visuals in these volumes?
A: With its more than 80 years of existence, Classics Illustrated showcases the work of generations of artists whose styles are as varied as the eras they represent. Rolland Livingstone, one of the earliest, was born in 1873 — three years before the Battle of the Little Bighorn — while Bill Sienkiewicz, who created a stunning reimagining of Moby-Dick in 1990 for a graphic-novel relaunch of the series, was born in 1958. It’s difficult to generalize about Classics Illustrated art, though some critics insist on making 1940s or ’50s CIs stand for the entire run.
The adaptation styles vary chronologically. In the early ’40s, scriptwriters often had a looser approach to the source material, resulting in the first versions of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” or “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” more closely resembling Hollywood than Stevenson or Hugo. The late 1940s and early 1950s brought greater textual fidelity, with scriptwriters providing for artists both background details and character descriptions. Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht, the dominant editor of the late ’50s and early ’60s, demanded strict adherence to the authors’ words. In the 1990s, Rick Geary, Gahan Wilson, John K. Snyder III, and others supplied both graphic-novel artwork and text.
Classics Illustrated has had a reputation as a textheavy comics publication, in which the illustrations serve the text rather than being an integral part of the storytelling. A frequently cited example is Alex Blum’s 1952 full-page presentation of Hamlet’s soliloquy with the entire text filling a single speech balloon. A greater balance is struck throughout the 1961 revision of “The Last Days of Pompeii,” with art by Jack Kirby and adaptation by Al Sundel. In other words, one can find fodder for any argument about the relation between words and visuals in the 169 original CI titles, 30 revised versions, 27 graphic novels, and three digest-size new adaptations.
Q. The arc of the business story might be as compelling as the story of how the books themselves evolved. I take it someone is still producing Classics Illustrated and new titles are still being produced? And what was/is the criteria for inclusion in the series — do the works have to be in public domain, how were titles chosen and was there always a controlling intelligence that paired writers and artists and commission them to specific titles?
A: A Canadian publisher began reissuing digitally tweaked and recolored CI Juniors in 2003 and the mainline CI series in 2005. British-based CCS Books subsequently received and still holds publication and distribution rights. They have reissued American, British and European editions and produced hardcover reprints. No new titles have been introduced since 1997.
The original publisher, Albert Kanter’s Gilberton Co., produced the bulk of American Classics in New York between 1941 and 1962. Two more issues were added by the Frawley Corp. in the late ’60s, bringing the total to 169. In addition to weekly editorial-staff meetings, Gilberton held annual title-selection conferences in which the publisher, editors, and art director would select a dozen titles a full year in advance.
The Bröntes, Jules Verne and Homer had long been in the public domain, so their works were easy choices. Gilberton also received copyright permissions from, among others, Erich Maria Remarque’s publisher for “All Quiet on the Western Front” and Jack London’s estate for “The Call of the Wild,” “White Fang” and “The Sea Wolf.”
Everyone had an equal vote, but for 20 years the most influential voice in title selection was Meyer Kaplan. He was an NYU English major who brought a passion for literature to his editorial functions. In testimony before a New York legislative committee at the peak of the 1950s anti-comics crusade, Kaplan delivered an eloquent defense of Classics Illustrated as a gateway for young readers to the realm of literary masterpieces.
It was Meyer Kaplan who in 1950 came up with the famous admonition that appeared at the end of every issue: “Now that you have read the Classics Illustrated edition, don’t miss the added enjoyment of reading the original, obtainable at your school or public library.” I’m continually amazed by the number of CI fans who can still recite the tag line from long-carried memory.
Q. The third edition is not simply a light updating of the second edition. So what’s new in it, and how has your understanding of the CI phenomenon changed since you started working on this project in the 1990s?
A: To begin with, the third edition is substantially longer than the second — it has grown from 381 to 456 pages, plus a doubling of color plates from 16 to 32 pages that contain 112 color images. The second edition was valued by readers and libraries for its appendices consisting of complete issue-by-issue, detailed listings of American, British and Canadian CI series. The third edition adds complete annotated listings for Classics in translation that appeared in Brazil, Mexico, Greece, Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland.
Also featured are many previously unpublished reproductions of original art, as well as an item of process artwork. A new chapter is devoted to the prolific and previously unidentified 1950s artist, John Parker, who painted memorable covers for “The Three Musketeers,” “The Count of Monte Cristo,” “Robinson Crusoe,” “Rip Van Winkle,” “Huckleberry Finn” and other titles. Additional information is included on contributions from Black artists Matt Baker and Ezra Jackson and Black scriptwriters George D. Lipscomb and Lorenz Graham.
One of my editors at McFarland, in signing off on this project, playfully mentioned the prospect of a fourth edition in time. Who knows? We’ll see.
Q. The idea behind Classic Illustrated seems elegant in the mathematical sense of the word. These are our great stories, told in a digestible way that — as Meyer Kaplan suggested — does not make the source material in anyway obsolete. I see them as something other than traditional comic books or graphic novels, but as a different, recombinant form of art. Is this right?
A: In 1941, Classics Illustrated was the first series to present adaptations of individual works of literature in discrete, unrelated comic books. Within a year, competitors began to appear, but Gilberton’s original concept proved the most successful. The series extended the shelf lives of “Lorna Doone” and “The Cloister and the Hearth” and spawned hundreds of thousands of English majors.
Classics Illustrated was a product of its times, when comic books could be found in every drugstore, the traditional canon ruled, and most students read “Silas Marner” and “Ivanhoe.” CI was part of generational bonding from New York to New Zealand. The influence persists in reprint series and, arguably, in the postmodern graphic-novel form.
With its fusion of images and text, Classics Illustrated stands as a consequential 20th-century effort to democratize imaginative literature and to offer readers hints and previews of its rewards. In recognition of his achievement, CI founder Albert Kanter was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2024.