Campfire Books (Steerforth) Releases Time Machine, other Adaptations

If I'm not already on record as being worried about the recent spate of graphic novel adaptations of canonical texts, I need to establish the fact here: I feel their accessibility makes it too easy for teachers to cop out on considering graphic novels, allowing educators to limit their research on the form and focus only on supplemental titles at best rather than finding the true quality stand-alone original narrative gems that really set the medium apart.

However, I have a soft spot for H.G. Wells' The Time Machine in traditional and pictoral form for several reasons. When I was in college, I found a great illustrated pamphlet version of the text, which it appears I've lost now, much to my regret. As well, in the only time I was ever able to teach upper classmen exclusively, which was during my student teaching in Pisgah, NC, I taught the novel to a group of mostly male reluctant readers, and we loved it. We drew pictures of what we thought the time machine looked like. We considered memories as time travel. I got to share with them a not-so-subtle penis joke. (Curious aren't you? Well, after the Time Traveller seems to have developed some feelings for Weena and has come to depend on her as a lifeline of sorts, he loses her and feels utterly alone and scared. To iterate this point, I dramatically exclaimed, "Imagine the loss he must feel! The sense of isolation! After all, can there be anything worse than to be a man without a Weena?!?") Everybody laugh. Curtain fall down.

So when Steerforth sent me an adaptation of this title from their new Campfire series of graphic novels, which cover classics, mythology, biography and originals, I took note. Lewis Helfand adapted the text serviceably, but the art (pencils by Rajesh Nagulakonda) was exceptionally striking, especially the coloring (by Manoj Yadav). The morlocks looked more like Golem than they did the hulking, hairy monsters I'd envisioned, but that was the only major flaw I found in this adaptation, which could be used to frontload a reading of the print text or as a quick-read supplement to thematic units on Imperialism, -topias, Science vs. Conscience, etc.

The adaptation also featured a bio of Wells and some information about technologies being developed in the Wells era.

Kudos to Campfire for such a fun effort with such a fun story. With 33 other titles hitting the market over the next two years, distribution through Random House, and brilliant art in each based on the previews I've seen, I expect Campfire to become a major player in the graphic novel market.