GATSBY FEVER: The Great Gatsby in Comics

The novel that set the gold standard.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a big deal and for very good reason. First and foremost, it is a great read.

Forget about it being required reading in some high school or college course. It is quite a dark and beautifully strange work that, whether you are inclined to tear down anything having to do with dead white men, it is a landmark work that will be around, well, forever. If you believe in the Great American Novel, this is the template for it. If you believe in coming-of-age novels, this is the gold standard. The characters are still relatively young. In fact, the novel follows this set of youngish characters on a last hurrah before youth has left the building. With this in mind, is it any wonder that people might want to see what a Gatsby graphic novel would be like? Well, just study the above original book cover for starters. Published in 1925, and recently having gone into the public domain, Gatsby fever has struck with a number of Gatsby comics out now and probably a bunch more as we look back at the Roaring Twenties from our own troubled perch. Let’s look at some of the most notable.

The best adaptation to follow the original.

As for setting gold standards, I’d have to say that the adaption published by Scribner in 2020 takes that honor. Scribner was Fitzgerald’s first and only publisher throughout his career and this graphic novel pays tribute to that special connection with a thoughtful and immersive work that is a classic in its own right. This is a perfect example of gathering together a winning creative team: Artist Aya Morton and artist-writer Fred Fordham. As editor Blake Hazard points out in the Foreword, it is quite a challenge to create a graphic novel from a prose novel of this caliber where the language in it is a character all its own. And yet, the impeccable care that has gone into this graphic novel taps right into the dark and melancholy core of the original novel.

Gatsby comic book.

Let’s add another Gatsby adaptation that closely follows the original. This one is from 2023, published by Clover Press, and brings in another creative team: writer Ted Adams and artist Jorge Coelho. It is a comic book format narrative, as opposed to a more expansive graphic novel format. And, by that, I mean what I say: the traditional comic book style has built-in bumps in the road as action builds and is interrupted from one issue to the next; while graphic novels can play upon a less restricted stage. Anyway, this makes for a beautiful book which doesn’t seem to add anything particularly new but Coelho’s art more than makes up for it.

Another fine adaptation.

And there’s also Pete Katz’s Gatsby, published in 2022 by Canterbury Classics, another one falling in the same vein as the last one. The potential trouble I see with any Gatsby graphic novel that is essentially only a faithful adaptation is that it is vulnerable to being perceived as a run-of-the-mill comic book version of a classic. There’s nothing wrong with that given the rich history of comics based on classics. It’s just something to think about. In fact, the trick will be to figure out the compelling reasons to do any Gatsby project. In this case, Katz’s book is a showcase for his amazing artwork. It’s a gorgeous book.

The most whimsical adaptation.

I’ll take us back now to the earliest comics adaptation in recent years. Outside of any “classics revisted” comics, I don’t believe there’s anything earlier than the version by Nicki Greenberg from 2007, published by Allen & Unwin. Here is a bona fide auteur-cartoonist approach: only one person doing both the writing and the artwork. It can be a very satisfying way to go with one vision. In this case, it is likely to be the most whimsical adaptation to Gatsby ever attempted. The cast of characters here are various creatures of uncertain origin. The story is told in a scrapbook format with the original narrative interwoven.

A very good Gatsby indeed.

I can well imagine K. Woodman-Maynard being a bit perturbed with the crowded field of Gatsby books, especially since her book, published in 2021 by Candlewick, offers exquisite style and intriguing interpretation. This is another auteur-cartoonist approach which shines on every page. This adaptation does a good job of highlighting some queer subtext too. Aside from the fact that Nick Carraway seems to be in love with Gatsby, Woodman-Maynard teases out a romantic tryst between Nick and a minor character, Mr. McKee. The novel only mentions Nick helping a drunken McKee find his bed but that is open to interpretation. It’s good to keep this in mind given our next and last Gatsby book which is determined to disrupt the status quo.

A 21st Century Gatsby!

This is supposed to be Gatsby as you’ve never seen him before and with a decidedly queer tinge, as the promotional material in 2023 from the publisher, AWA, declares. It is, in fact, a glorious and audacious graphic novel and a genuine page-turner. For material that should be so familiar, it does a great job of having the reader curious about what happens next. True to its promise, this is a Gatsby for a new century. Part of the fun, for me, was in seeing how writer Jeremy Holt shook up the narrative. There is no faithful following of the original narrative, which every other example I’ve presented here does. As I suggested earlier, each new Gatsby book needs a wow factor and this one achieves it in numerous ways: compelling artwork by Felipe Cunha, intriguing writing, and overall originality. In the new disruptive age we live in, I suppose, it’s going to get more and more tricky to pull a Hamilton. Just because an iconic character or historical figure’s background (race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality) is switched doesn’t guarantee a compelling work. In this case, Gatsby is Black and gay. It doesn’t come off as a surprise or maybe even a necessary element to the story but it works nonetheless. Maybe more could have been done with this change from the original. And, with that in mind, it’s also important to realize the power and relevance of the original as it tackles racism head on, along with issues of class, gender and identity. I don’t think anyone would make a case that this graphic novel improves upon the original. That would be a big mistake. But it definitely has the wow factor and, more to the point, it taps into what makes the original work tick: we are perpetually struggling with who we are and hoping that a dream may fill the void. And that line of thought doesn’t change from one century to the next.

Gatsby, oh, Gatsby, we hardly knew ye. And yet there are so many comic books and graphic novels about you! Moving forward, as more Gatsby books emerge, it will come down to the particular quirks and distinctions of each project. If another Gatsby book veers too close to the familiar or the obvious, that’s a risk it will have to consider.