Above the Dreamless Dead: World War I in Poetry and Comics

by Various Authors, Chris Duffy (Editor)

Overview

As the Great War dragged on and its catastrophic death toll mounted, a new artistic movement found its feet in the United Kingdom. The Trench Poets, as they came to be called, were soldier-poets dispatching their verse from the front lines. Known for its rejection of war as a romantic or noble enterprise, and its plainspoken condemnation of the senseless bloodshed of war, Trench Poetry soon became one of the most significant literary moments of its decade.
The marriage of poetry and comics is a deeply fruitful combination, as evidenced by this collection. In stark black and white, the words of the Trench Poets find dramatic expression and reinterpretation through the minds and pens of some of the greatest cartoonists working today.
With New York Times bestselling editor Chris Duffy (Nursery Rhyme Comics, Fairy Tale Comics) at the helm, Above the Dreamless Dead is a moving and illuminating tribute to those who fought and died in World War I. Twenty poems are interpreted in comics form by twenty of today's leading cartoonists, including Eddie Campbell, Kevin Huizenga, George Pratt, and many others.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466875180
Publisher:	First Second
Publication date:	09/23/2014
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
File size:	67 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Contributors to Above the Dreamless Dead include: Hannah Berry, Stephen R. Bissette, Eddie Campbell, Lilli Carré, Liesbeth De Stercke, Hunt Emerson, Garth Ennis, Simon Gane, Sarah Glidden, Isabel Greenberg, Sammy Harkham, David Hitchcock, Kevin Huizenga, Kathryn Immonen, Stuart Immonen, Peter Kuper, James Lloyd, Pat Mills, Anders Nilsen, Danica Novgorodoff, Luke Pearson, George Pratt, Carol Tyler, and Phil Winslade. Edited by Chris Duffy.

Chris Duffy is a writer and comics editor. He worked as Senior Comics Editor at the award-winning Nickelodeon Magazine for 13 years and currently edits SpongeBob Comics for United Plankton Pictures, as well as other projects. Chris was part of the board of advisors for Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly’s TOON TREASURY OF CLASSIC CHILDREN’S COMICS. His comic book writing includes scripts for BIZARRO COMICS, BIZARRO WORLD, SUPERMAN ADVENTURES, SCOOBY-DOO, WHAT IF?, RUGRATS COMIC ADVENTURES, and BATMAN CHRONICLES. He wrote comics strips for FAMILY DOG MAGAZINE. Comics that he has written and drawn have appeared in several anthologies, including AWESOME, AWESOMER, and DRAGONS! He lives with his family in Cold Spring, New York.

Table of Contents

Introduction

I - THE CALL TO WAR
"Channel Firing" / Thomas Hardy; adapted by Luke Pearson
"I Don't Want to Be a Soldier" (Soldiers' Song) / adapted by Hunt Emerson
"Peace" / Rupert Brooke; adapted by Simon Gane
"War" / Francis Edward Ledwidge; adapted by Sammy Harkham
"All the Hills and Vales Along" / Charles Sorley; adapted by Kevin Huizenga

II - IN THE TRENCHES
From The Great Push / Patrick MacGill; adapted by Eddie Campbell
"The Immortals" / Isaac Rosenberg; adapted by Peter Kuper
"Greater Love" / Wilfred Owen; adapted by George Pratt
"The Question" / Wilfrid Wilson Gibson; adapted by Hannah Berry
"Sing Me to Sleep" (Soldiers' Song) / adapted by Hunt Emerson
"Therefore is the Name of It called Babel" / Osbert Sitwell; adapted by Isabel Greenberg
"The General" / Siegfried Sassoon; adapted by Garth Ennis and Phil Winslade
"Dulce et Eecorum Est" / Wilfred Owen; adapted by George Pratt
"A Private" / Edward Thomas; adapted by Hannah Berry
"When This Bloody War is Over" (Soldiers' Song) / adapted by Hunt Emerson
"The Coward" / Rudyard Kipling; adapted by Stephen R. Bissette
"Soldier's Dream" / Wilfred Owen; adapted by George Pratt
"Break of Day in the Trenches" / Isaac Rosenberg; adapted by Sarah Glidden
"I Looked Up From My Writing" / Thomas Hardy; adapted by Kathryn Immonen and Stuart Immonen
"The Dancers" / Wilfrid Wilson Gibson; adapted by Lilli Carre´
"Dead Man's Dump" / Isaac Rosenberg; adapted by Pat Mills and David Hitchcock
"Everyone Sang" / Siegfried Sassoon; adapted by Isabel Greenberg

III - AFTERMATH
"Ancient History" / Siegfried Sassoon; adapted by Liesbeth De Stercke
"The Next War" / Osbert Sitwell; adapted by Simon Gane
"The End" / Wilfred Owen; adapted by Danica Novgorodoff
"Repression of War Experience" / Siegfried Sassoon; adapted by James Lloyd
"Two Fusiliers" / Robert Graves; adapted by Carol Tyler
"In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'" / Thomas Hardy; adapted by Anders Nilsen

Notes
The Poets
Comics Contributors
Further Reading

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/21/2014
If any poetry cries out for adaptation as sequential art, it is that of the Great War, and this anthology is an exemplary testament to this. Various artists adapt the works of some of the most famous WWI poets, including Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Isaac Rosenberg. The talented cartoonists, including Hunt Emerson, Sarah Glidden, and Stuart Immomen, use different approaches to illuminate poems known for its bitter irony and brutal honesty. The collection is divided into three sections—“A Call To War,” “In the Trenches,” and “Aftermath”—and the adapted poems capture the horror of the Western front. For example, Kevin Huizenga’s adaptation of the Charles Sorley poem, “All the Hills and Vales Along” does an excellent job of incorporating Sorley’s sardonic take on the themes of duty and the glory of war, which characterized much pre-war poetry. Stephen R. Bissette’s adaptation of Kipling’s “The Coward” uses a unique textual arrangement to magnify the brutally laconic epitaph. The real strength of the anthology comes both from the poems selected for it and the variety of visual approaches—ranging from the cartoonish to the phantasmagoric— that prevents it from relying simply on the visual carnage of the “war to end all wars.” (July)

Publishers Weekly

This should encourage high school English and history teachers to supplement or even toss the textbook guide and, more importantly, impel young adults to reflect on war with poetry in one hand and a newspaper in the other.

STARRED REVIEW BCCB

Original and evocative . . . This isn't the first and won't be the last WWI poetry anthology issued during the war's centennial, but it may prove to be the most accessible and striking.

STARRED REVIEW Booklist

08/01/2014
Veterans of mud, blood, and ink, the British soldier Trench Poets filed dispatches from the front that rejected any romantic nobility in war and cried out against the senseless murder of millions. This collection adapts 28 poems via the black-and-white artwork of Eddie Campbell (From Hell), Carol Tyler (You'll Never Know), George Pratt (Paroles de Poilus), Peter Kuper (World War 3 Illustrated), Pat Mills (Charley's War), and other contemporary comics creators. Often, the art adds subplots or rich details. For example, a Christlike image transforms into an angel of death in "Soldiers Dream." In "Break of Dawn in the Trenches," a rat escapes the battlefield to feed her offspring underground: life goes on. Some wrenching selections become oddly beautiful through the drawings, as when glittering dew renders magical a lifeless soldier impaled on barbed wire. VERDICT This visceral and haunting compilation will help concerned readers understand the costs of war, particularly World War I, our planet's first industrialized war. A solid choice for classrooms, too, high school and up.—M.C.

Library Journal