Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith became an instant success with readers and critics, landing on the New York Times Bestseller List for 40 weeks and requiring two printings before the book even came out in Great Britain.
In Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the Bennet sisters, trained to fight in the martial arts, have become lean, mean Zombie fighting machines, ridding the countryside of scores of the unmentionable undead. Readers couldn't get enough of this regency romance/monster mash-up, and over a million copies were printed in the first year. Hollywood studios began a bidding war for the movie rights, and a deluxe edition of the book with 30% more zombies and mayhem was published in November, 2009.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel
In May, 2010, Del Rey Books published the graphic version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Where the original Pride and Prejudice and Zombies contained 85% of Jane Austen's writing, the comic book has largely abandoned all but a few of her sentences and retained only a vague outline of the classic novel. In this adaptation, blood and gore prevail, with Elizabeth Bennet, zombie slayer, and Mr. Darcy, a master slayer himself, being covered with blood and bits of rotting flesh every time they slash and dice their way through a group of zombies.
This occurs with increasing frequency as the plot progresses. Elizabeth's encounter with a group of the undead as she walks to Netherfield Park to nurse a sick Jane is typically gruesome, and she arrives at the great house covered in gore. All the Bennet girls are strikingly beautiful but capable. Mr. Bennet has turned into a darker figure, concerned as he is for his family's safety, and regards Elizabeth as the only one of his daughters who combines sense with her outstanding skills in keeping the murdering hordes of the undead at bay. This illustrated novel retains Seth Grahame-Smith's wickedly comic treatment of Charlotte Collins' deterioration as she turns into a zombie, and Mr. Wickham's unfortunate but funny state as a diaper-wearing paraplegic.
Adapting Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel
Tony Lee, who lives in London, adapted Jane Austen's and Seth Grahame-Smith's book for the graphic version of the novel. A writer for television and radio magazines for over twenty years, he is a seasoned adapter of comic novels such as X-Men, Spider Man, Shrek, and Doctor Who. Lee felt some pressure integrating Seth Grahame-Smith's material with Jane Austen's classic novel, but it must have been worth the effort, for in the end he noted: "There’s Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters running around Hertfordshire shooting zombies in the face, setting fire to them, hacking them down with daggers. Mr. Darcy takes down zombies in the cellar of Netherfield… It's fun."
Illustrations for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel
Best known for illustrating the Buffy The Vampire comic series, penciller and illustrator Cliff Richards ably turned Pride and Prejudice and Zombies into a graphic novel that is both visually exciting and easy to follow. Born in Brazil, Cliff first worked in advertising before getting his break in comic illustration. Cliff's other projects have included Wonder Woman for DC Comics, Rogue and New Thunderbolts for Marvel Comic, and Birds of Prey, the Huntress: Year One mini-series. For his black and white illustrations for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies he uses the technique of thickly penciling the foreground objects and allowing background details to fade into gray.
The Cover Painting of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel
Only the cover of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel is painted in color. Roberto Parada, a free-lance illustrator was commissioned to paint the cover for the first edition of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. He also painted the 13 color illustrations for the later deluxe,expanded edition. For the cover of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel, he created an arresting image of a half-rotting female zombie in regency dress crawling out of a grave. The image is both grotesque and comic, for the zombie's half skeletal hand clings to a lacy and berriboned parasol, and, even with her face half gone, her hairdo remains immaculate.
More on the Topic
- The Popularity and Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
- The Comic Book Bin
- Sneak Peek
- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Get a Graphic Novel, Tony Lee Talks Adaptation
Vic Sanborn - I oversee two blogs: Jane Austen's World and Jane Austen Today, and write about Jane Austen and the Regency World and its manners and ...
