Two comics adaptations of Zazie dans le métro: from figuration to tradaptation
4 February 17:00
Maison Française d’Oxford, Salon, 2-10 Norham Rd, Oxford OX2 6SE
Speaker: Ann Miller (University of Leicester Fellow, joint editor of European Comic Art)
Ann Miller (University of Leicester Fellow, joint editor of European Comic Art).
This talks compares two adaptations of Zazie dans le métro into comics format: Jacques Carelman’s, from 1966, and Clément Oubrerie’s, from 2008. The former received a negative critical reception and was deemed old-fashioned and excessively faithful, on grounds of its inclusion of the entire text under the comics panels, whereas the latter has been highly praised. The talk considers the question of fidelity in relation to legitimacy, before expounding two frameworks for analysis of comics adaptations from literature, Gaudreault and Marion’s notions of the ‘intrinsic narrative potential’ of a medium and the médiagénie of a narrative project, and Berthou’s tripartite categorisation into mediation, figuration and tradaptation.
