For as long as we've been telling stories, we've been adapting them to other media in attempts to gain a different perspective on what the story has to offer. From the moment the first actor stepped out of the chorus to start "performing" the myths and stories of Ancient Greece to the film adaptations of popular novels today, almost every mode of artistic expression has turned to the written (or spoken word) for inspiration.

The visual arts in the West have always had a long association with literary adaptations, as painting. sculpture, and other modes of representation were preoccupied with interpretations of the Christian Bible for hundreds of years. Even when they moved on to more secular subject matter, it wasn't uncommon for artists to draw upon imagery from classical literature for their subject matter.

Of course, the use of illustrations in literary works to augment a story is an even older tradition, as the earliest manuscripts, predating the printing press, were filled with decoration and ornamentation. One only has to look at any page from the Book Of Kells to appreciate that. More prosaic forms of the illustrated novel have also existed for some time, of course, but it wasn't until the means of mass producing printed material became common that the illustrating of books began in earnest.

Harry Clarke, perhaps most famous for his stained glass, and Aubrey Beardsley both had great success with illustrating the works of Edgar Allen Poe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With the introduction of the comic book in the earlier part of the twentieth century, the practice of telling stories with pictures and words became commonplace. I can still remember as a child the Classic Comics imprint that specialized in abridged adaptations of classic childhood adventure stories by authors such as Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson.

So it's no surprise that as comic books have become more sophisticated and broadened their audience base to include adults as well as children, that their literary adaptations have grown accordingly. Of course, the work of some authors lends itself more readily to this form than others; the chances of seeing a graphic novel version of To The Lighthouse by Virginia Wolfe are probably slim while it wasn't surprising to find that an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere had been produced by Vertigo, the DC comics' graphic novel imprint.