ABSTRACT
Algernon Blackwood's The Willows (2019), a graphic novel by Nathan Carson and Sam Ford, is an adaptation of Blackwood’s 1907 novella. Carson and Ford operate in a specific set of conventions, and this transmediation determines the adapters’ narrational strategies. Our understanding of comics depends on what the relationship between the comic’s verbal and visual elements implies. The graphic component may provide context not implied by the wording. A work of art in its own right and a derivative linked to the original text, an adaptation retains its intertextual engagement with the source and may be influenced by it. It is not uncommon, however, that adaptations engage additional verbal and non-verbal sources. Sam Ford’s art evokes visual associations that implicate sources other than Blackwood’s text. The adapters’ narrational choices and emphases can only be perceived when the work of a different author is involved. For the modern reader, Blackwood’s name and writings are often linked with H.P. Lovecraft, who listed The Willows among the best weird tales and admired Blackwood’s work in general. Carson and Ford read Blackwood through Lovecraftian lens reworking their graphic novel into another tale of the Cthulhu Mythos.
