Irish Arts Center presents
Ulysses And You: Behind The Scenes Of Adapting The Novel
Thursday, October 07, 2010

On the eve of New York Comic Con, experience Ulysses “Seen”, Robert Berry’s graphic novel adaptation of the 1922 edition of James Joyce’s epic masterpiece, through commentary by the artist in conversation with Mike Barsanti, editor, and moderated by Karen Green, curator of the Columbia University Library collection of graphic novels. Learn how you, too, can be part of the creative process, with a special preview of pages from the newest chapter, and a forum for readers to suggest settings, props and character types for the remaining chapters of the comic.

Click here for for further info and tickets.

If I know you, and I think I do, you’re wondering what that dog is doing posing beside a rather stiff waxwork dummy of the great man himself? That dog is Clive and he’s a Dubliner, a working dog and one who appreciates the finer points of literature and history by the looks of things. Check the continuing adventures of Clive (and Murray) on the wonderfully named Assistance Dog for Autism blog! Clive met Sean O’Casey too, but who cares about that?

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“Breathtaking adaptations …” We’ll take that compliment any day of the week! Check out this from the Huffington Post and see what good company we keep. There are 14 recommendations in no particular order and I’m sure at least one of them will be new to someone out there. Maybe we ought to review them all here. Maybe we will. Stick around.

For my introductory picture this week I swiped a rare stamp from eBay and the front cover to a Wordsworth Classics edition of the novel. Frankly I can’t imagine a book cover more expertly designed to keep readers away. Call it a classic and slap a boring oil on the front and hope for the best. Thankfully this website is trying to do the opposite. Read on for the good stuff about Joyce and the great novel Ulysses from all about the interweb. It’s random, it’s chaotic, but who knows? Some it may strike a chord. If you don’t read it – you won’t find out!

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Ulyssean blog post of the week award goes to blogger David Nice who reports on a trip to Trieste. A thoroughly interesting jaunt it sounds too (with many photos included as evidence) – despite the article not being exclusively about Joyce. We’ll have to share with Italo Svevo, but on further investigation that doesn’t appear to be so bad! I’d never heard of him, but my ignorance is legendary! The picture above is by Luigi Tolotti borrowed from the aforementioned blog. Read on for more irrelevant stuff and interesting nonsense from the interweb world of Ulysses …

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Kicking off the Hypertext Chapbook this week is a link to the news about the reading group Infinite Zombies tackling Ulysses and currently around halfway through by the looks of things. Eight Weeks seems a bit ambitious! Eight months would be stretching things for this reader! Insights are to be gained therein on how the project was formed and what works have already been discussed. There’s nothing stopping you from joining in I guess and if not you can at least read what is already there. A lively conversation from the look of it.

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Robot 6′s Brigid Alverson has posted an interview with Rob and James Atlas re: the print version of Ulysses “Seen”, which you can read here.

Welcome to another Hypertext Chapbook – the place where we scour the web for all things Ulyssean. This week we have a song, a bicycle ride, a Papal blessing, a lecture, a letter and some dusty old manuscripts. Accept these meagre diversions while we all eagerly await reports of our glorious leader’s performance at the San Diego Comic Convention panel on Comics After Paper. If you can’t wait or didn’t know (?) here’s a preview by panel host Doug Wolk. Obviously the panel itself has already happened but as the SDCC is a notoriously draining experience we may have to wait until Rob is fully recovered to hear what was said. In the meantime read all the good stuff after the break …

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If you’re at the San Diego Comic Con, you can catch Rob today (Saturday, 7/24) at 4:00-5:00 on Doug Wolk’s Comics After Paper panel, which, as the name suggests, focuses on making comics for new media. This panel was flagged as a “must see” on the convention fans blog!

Throwaway Horse, LLC is proud to announce its partnership with Atlas & Co., a distinguished independent publisher of nonfiction based in New York City, to publish in installments the print version of Ulysses “Seen,” a graphic adaptation of James Joyce’s classic novel. Rob Berry, a principal creator at Throwaway Horse, said of his vision: “Part of the reason for my choosing to adapt Joyce’s novel was to see how far I could stretch the expectations of a cross section of readers less than familiar with comics and to showcase the advantages of the form as a storytelling and educational medium.”

Ulysses “Seen” gained media attention from controversial images of nudity that were censored in the iPad application release of the graphic novel. Apple Inc. challenged the Ulysses “Seen” app upon submission to the iTunes store due to inappropriate content. Throwaway Horse agreed to modify the comic according to Apple Inc.’s conditions, but after a burst of media attention, Apple reversed its position and invited the company to resubmit the original, uncensored graphics. The unabridged version of episode 1, TELEMACHUS, can now be found on iTunes.

“Our aim,” said Chad A. Rutkowski, “is to create a companion to this notoriously difficult book that will make it accessible to a general audience through a dynamic interactive medium.”

Ulysses “Seen” establishes a domain for classic literature in the 21st century and demonstrates how new media can enhance traditional media rather than threaten its survival. This is Joyce for the next generation.

A PDF of this press release can be found here.