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Alex, it's great to have you here. Um, talking about Kafka.

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Um, and a different angle on Kafka, which is we're going to focus on a graphic novel and a graphic novel by Peter Cooper.

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Um, of the metamorphosis, uh, 2003.

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And I wondered if you could, uh, set the scene as a little bit Peter Cooper, um, this, this book that you're going to talk about?

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Absolutely. So, um, I work on comics. Um, and I have to spend a lot of time, as many comic scholars do, justifying the study of comics.

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Um, so it's really exciting to talk about comics and Kafka. Um, Cooper is, uh, an American comics artist who has worked a lot with Kafka.

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So he's produced three different volumes of Kafka adaptations, of which this book is a metamorphosis as one.

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Um, and I think he's really interesting artist.

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He's an illustrator. He does lots of comics, lots of strips, lots of covers.

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But his adaptations of Kafka really interesting because of his kind of engagement with the original texts.

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So Cooper came to Kafka as a student. He read metamorphosis, first of all, all the Kafka that he read, um, and he read it in the mirror translations.

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So we're thinking about Kafka and comics and adaptation,

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and it's already kind of interesting that this is a non-German speaking comics creator who's engaging with The Metamorphosis,

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but already at a kind of one level of abstraction already through a translation.

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I hadn't realised that he'd done so much with Kafka. Do you know the other texts as well?

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The other comic novels? So there are two.

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Um, he started working on Kafka in the late 80s, so I think this has been a real kind of labour of love and a real long term engagement with Kafka.

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Um, and he's adapted many of the stories. So things like, um, Hunger Artist, he's adapted, um, in the penal colony.

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So he's, he's worked a lot with the short, the short fiction, the short prose works.

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That's fantastic. I mean, I know that, um, comics, the graphic novel, very big genre in Germany.

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And you mentioned at the beginning that it's, you know, perhaps suffers in this country a little bit,

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um, not being seen as serious, but actually, it's very important in Germany, isn't it?

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Can you tell why? Why the difference or why has it developed that way in Germany?

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So the development of comics has been quite delayed in Germany.

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It's sort of ironic that some of the very earliest comics are coming out of Germany in the late 19th century,

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and they're really significantly influencing US comics creators.

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And then it's really only in the last kind of 30, 40 years that in Germany,

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comics have taken more of a kind of central stance in the publishing industry.

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And what we've seen is a lot of adaptations. So a lot of comics that are created based on kind of literary models, things like Kafka in particular,

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but also writers like Thomas Barnhart, um, imagine Thomas Barnhart in comics.

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It was kind of amazing. Um, but comics has been there's been an increasing push in Germany for comics to be seen as a kind of serious art form.

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And, you know, the great thing about comics is, is that it's or can be very accessible.

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So, for example, if you're reading in a second language, if you're trying to come to Kafka reading in German, but it's not your first language.

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Comics can be a really nice bridge because it's usually a reduced version of the text, or maybe a simplified version of a text.

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But comics can also be incredibly complex. It can demand really complex reading strategies.

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You have to be able to interpret text and image at the same time.

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Unlike film, where images move and as soon as you've seen it, it's gone.

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In comics, you can have multiple images on the same page, which as a reader, you're being asked to interpret all at once at the same time,

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but you're also being asked to kind of zoom in on individual images, individual words, at the same time.

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And find a way through and a direction of reading.

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Exactly. Yeah. So in some senses you have a lot more autonomy than you do with a prospect's.

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Um, and there's something I think really great about that in relation to Kafka,

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where Kafka is a writer who kind of famously demands a lot from readers and unsettles readers and makes them feel so uncomfortable.

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And so there's something kind of exciting to get that into comics where you have all

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these very different reading strategies that you have to do all at the same time.

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That's really interesting. I mean, but I mean, one of the problems with putting this text, um, of all Kafka into comics is,

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of course, the problem of how to represent the central character, Gregor.

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Um, could you talk a little bit about that and why it's so tricky?

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Yeah. So, I mean, famously, Kafka did not want a drawing of whatever it is that Gregor has become as a result of the metamorphosis.

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He didn't want a picture of that. On the cover of the text, he wrote to his publisher,

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expressing deep shock and alarm at the very idea that there would be an illustration on the front cover.

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Um, so of course, for comics creation coming along and having to draw Gregor or draw whatever this creature is, is, is clearly a challenge.

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And it's a challenge that takes in, you know, the comics creators, the adaptors, relationship with the author.

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You know, we have this problem all the way through with Kafka. We know that Kafka wanted his works to be destroyed.

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And yet here we are, a century after his death, still talking about them, still engaging with them.

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So there's this kind of that level of it.

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And then there's also just the, the practical problem of, of drawing what it is that in the text is described.

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And what is described in the text is in many ways very ambiguous.

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This is the same with a lot of Kafka's images. Kafka is a really visual writer.

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But oftentimes when you try and really kind of actually sit down and draw those images, they really resist a kind of realist depiction.

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There's a problem of scale, isn't that?

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Um, that's one of the things that's very striking, and we're not really sure how big this creature, vermin, insect, whatever it is, is.

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And then there is a lot of detail of wiggling legs and bellies and hard sort of carapace, but yet it doesn't quite fit together.

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Yeah. And we know that the blanket on the bed is sort of rolling off of his stomach, which is now, you know, the wrong size.

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The. I think. The, um.

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The challenge for Cooper, and Cooper was very aware of the challenge of this.

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Cooper was aware that there was this this prohibition by Kafka on drawing Greco.

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Um, his original suggestion, which which the publisher didn't take up, sadly, was, um, that there would be a sort of translucent foam over the cover,

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like a sort of dust jacket, so that the reader could only see the drawn picture of Greg, or if they took that off.

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So there would be some kind of agency by the by the reader in revealing a conflict to resolve as well.

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Yeah, exactly. The story fits really well with the story.

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I mean, it's a shame, you know, we know that. We know that, um, literature sometimes comes down to economics.

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Um, so, of course, if you're adding a lovely piece of film to every, every copy, the book makes it expensive.

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Um, but I think it's a really interesting it's a really interesting problem.

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And it was clearly a problem that Cooper was, was hugely aware of.

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But it's a problem that the comics always has with adaptation that when you have ambiguity that's inherent in a prose text.

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A comics creator has to make a decision whether to, as it were.

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Get rid of that ambiguity because they have to, at some point draw it.

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They have to at some point make whatever it is visible.

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But they can also find ways to incorporate that ambiguity through other strategies, through other means.

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So it's a kind of, you know, there's a problem, but there's also an opportunity.

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It's like any form of translation, isn't it?

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When you're translating a text between languages, for example, or into other forms, uh, ambiguity is the hardest thing.

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Um, I feel like we need to look at something. Yes. Um, and perhaps we could look at the cover, first of all, because we've talked about that.

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Now, the original cover, which Kafka approved.

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Um, he wanted an open door. Let's look at this cover, um, for the Peter Cooper, which sort of incorporates Kafka's wishes.

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Um, but also goes against them. Yeah. Can you talk about it a little bit?

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Yeah. So on this, on this cover, we have that sort of, uh, not the image of an open door, but the light that's clearly shining from the door.

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There's this shadowy figure that's kind of, um, coming into the frame from the top right hand corner.

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Um, and there's this really nice use of kind of diagonal lines.

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Cooper's really influenced by German expressionism and early 20th century art.

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Um, and so there's this really kind of nice effect going on here that we have this this, you know, what, to me, looks like The Cabinet of Caligari.

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Um, it it it's this kind of lovely nod to the period of the original text to German Expressionism.

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What's also interesting is that we have Gregor. So Gregor, it appears as Basil.

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Um, Vladimir Nabokov, writer, entomologist, drew pictures of Gregor as creature, based on the description of him in the original text.

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And I think there is a little kind of hint of that in this depiction.

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Um, but what's interesting, too, is the face. So one of the really interesting questions about the metamorphosis as a text is how human is Gregor?

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How human was Gregor? Is Gregor still human?

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The question is even posed in the text itself.

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So there's also this question of if you're drawing Gregor, how much do you draw the animal insect body and how many human features are retained.

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And so here, what I think, um, Cooper has done, which is really great, is we have a kind of humanistic head, but it's really abstracted.

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This is not a realist depiction. This is a really abstracted image where the eyes are simply large circles.

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They're not drawn in any kind of realist way. The mouth is is drawn in this very kind of geometric way.

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There's no attempt to make this look realist, and I think that's a good example of what comics can do.

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It's finding a sort of halfway position between not showing its at all, which we know it's wanted and and showing a kind of, uh,

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showing an attempt at the kind of ambiguity that you get from the original text, but that you maybe can't necessarily get in the drawing.

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It made me think of the Royal Ballet's, um, production of metamorphosis.

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Um, and Arthur Pitre, the director, and had Watson, the, uh, lead dancer, were here talking about precisely that,

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about how they wanted Greco to be still human within the, uh, the creature leanness and ways of making that visible.

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So I find that really, really fascinating.

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As soon as you go into the visual, you have that dilemma of how human Gregory's, which is, of course, one of the central things of the text.

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Um, interesting. Uh, sort of also is the fact of this shadow, of this black shadow of authority of of course, we don't know who it is at this point.

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Um, that's already there on the cover then. Yeah.

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That's this kind of sense of foreboding. Um. Many comics artists, of course, use colour to achieve certain effects.

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I think it's really striking here that the block text is in red.

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The title is in red. This white, red black has obviously got certain resonances.

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I'm not sure if that was deliberate, but the use of black and white throughout this comic also.

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I mean, of course, again, it's a kind of, um, it's a kind of gesture to the early 20th century German expressionism.

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But I think there's also a kind of starkness about that that works incredibly well with the story that has been read metaphorically,

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allegorically, not necessarily in a realist way. You know, we know in real life nobody wakes up and has turned into a giant insect.

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We know that can't happen. So we're being asked to enter a story world where where that can happen.

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And I think the use of black and white in this, you know, again, it gives you that,

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that kind of distance that you get in a different way in the original.

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Now, we can't talk about the whole, uh, book. People need to go and buy it and read it.

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I didn't know it before. Um, you, um, uh, brought it to me, as it were, to talk about, um,

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but let's just talk about a couple of the things from the beginning that are very striking, um, about the translation into images.

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Um, I suppose one of the things that really struck me, um,

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from the beginning is this room that he wakes into, um, which is so important in the story itself.

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Um, it's it's the the story is based on that flat that Kafka actually lived in,

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the apartment that Kafka lived in, and his room is sort of open with multiple doors.

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People had to go through it to get to various places. Um, it becomes, uh, a prison and a safe haven.

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And most productions sort of picture it as very bleak.

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Um, tell me a little bit about this bourgeois.

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Yeah. Decadence. This is. This is a kind of beta Meyer Paradise.

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Um, so you have it looks almost like a doll's house.

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Um, you have a bedside table clock.

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You have a nice rug. A nice floral rug on the floor.

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You have the sofa which goes. Which will be mentioned later. Chest of drawers, writing desk.

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The picture of the woman in furs is, of course, prominently placed on the wall, but it looks, in a sense, incredibly homely.

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There's floral patterned wallpaper, but I think what's interesting, too, is that you get these sort of very subtle small.

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Details that we know are going to come back and are going to be more important later.

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And I think the most important of them here is the key.

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In the door, because that locked door and the doors to Gregor's room are going to be so important throughout this.

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And actually, on the very next page and in the panel at the very top.

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Gregor is front and centre, but actually that locked door is still there.

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It's still there in the frame because that's that's what this is going to revolve around.

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But I think it's also worth saying. Of course, every translation is an interpretation and every adaptation is different.

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And Cooper himself has said, you know, this is my this is my metamorphosis.

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Every single comics creator would, would, would do something different.

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Something different would speak to them.

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But there is something I think, I think quite interesting about, you know, what's the challenge for the visual artist in adapting this?

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They do have to to make a decision about. Is that a public space?

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Is there something actually quite bleak in the bourgeois homeliness this room with.

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You know, Paul Gregor's suitcase full of wares for his wretched, wretched job as a travelling salesman.

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There. There on the right. So the visual artist has to choose just a few moments of text, um, and then fills in with the pictures.

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Um, I can't not talk about how when he wakes up, we see him with little stars round his head as if he's been hit.

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You know, like pow in comic speak, but also then he immediately says, how about if I go back to sleep a bit for a bit and forget this prank,

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which sounds like this something happened to him from outside rather than inside.

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And I wonder if that's characteristic of this interpretation.

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It's definitely positioning it explicitly as a comic.

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So it's sort of playing with the tropes that you might expect from, as it were, non literary comic,

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the more sort of popular comics that we would think of when we think of comics,

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rather than graphic novels and graphic literature and things that sound much worthier.

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So I think there is something about this that is playing with conventions and expectations of the form itself.

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Um, I also think it's really interesting that Gregor has some kind of spittle coming out of his mouth.

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So that's something that, again, it's this kind of mixture of the mundane.

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He's just woken up, you know, it's just the result of sleep.

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But there's also something clearly there's something incredibly sinister.

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And of course, you can have the the soap bubbles, the combination of soap bubbles and the combination of narrative text.

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Which in a way, the way that works in comics, in a way I think is, is not unlike the use of free indirect discourse for a later reader for which,

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you know, as our students know, for which Kafka is famous, this muddying of the voice of the narrator and the voice or perspective of Gregor.

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Again, perspective is hard to do in comics. Um.

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So that that use of the speech bubbles, I think, is really.

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Really helps to do what is happening in the original.

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Absolutely. Um, we're going to have to stop.

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But I again, I'm just going to ask you the last slide you've given me is, is could I go saying, to [INAUDIBLE] with it all?

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Um, a kind of rebelliousness, which we don't generally see in the figure is, is that again,

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something that's out of the comic world or is it of, um, this interpretation?

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I think it's partly Cooper's interpretation, and I think it's partly, again, as convention of comics.

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Um, this kind of boldness and I think, I think Cooper clearly is really, um, really loves Kafka.

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So I think this is an adaptation that's done with a huge amount of care, but it's, I think in some ways a comic that is, you know,

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it's playing with what it means to be a comic and what it means to take something like Kafka, you know, iconic writer, uh,

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literature that is so famous that so many people have read, you know, to put that into comics and to see that as something productive,

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something that can give us something new and not just a simplified version of of

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Kafka's original or a version that somehow is sacrilege because it's changing.

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It's changing the original. Um, so it gives us something kind of exciting and it gives us something also that that shows us what comics can do,

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as well as showing us what comics can do with Kafka.