Folklore, Mythology, and the Comic Book Format

Definition

Comic book creators borrow themes, archetypes, and ideas from traditional and contemporary folklore to build their own narratives, histories, heroes, villains, and origin stories, creating a strong connection and sense of community with their audience. Folklore, which includes myths, legends, and folk and fairy tales, is in the public domain and thus freely available for anyone to adapt, adopt, retell, or rework in any medium.

Introduction

Folklore—consisting of traditional customs, superstitions, myths, legends, folktales, riddles, proverbs, motifs, and songs—has infused the world of Western comic books. While most comic book creators construct their histories, heroes, villains, and legends for their stories, they consciously and subconsciously borrow themes and ideas from traditional and contemporary folklore and depend upon folklore and folklore theory to develop their narratives. Like any written version of folklore, these are necessarily interpretations because the thought world of a literate culture is so different from that of the oral cultures from which the stories came.

Traditional prose narratives, along with those of poetic folklore such as ballads, epics, and sagas, are, by their very nature, concise and spare in details, focusing primarily on the plot. The folkloric style leaves gaps in the storyline and the concrete visualization of characters and settings, which can be filled by illustrations, narration, and dialogue in comic book panels. The ages, physical appearances, personalities of characters, and relationships, as shown through facial expressions and posture, become visible. Buildings, furniture, and clothing in the illustrations suggest a time and place in which the story is set, while the illustrator's colors, shading, style, panel shape, and font set the overall tone of the graphic story.

There are four basic ways that folklore has been employed in the comic book format. First, and most evident throughout comic book publishing, there are straightforward adaptations of folklore, which involve an element of interpretation in the rendering of the story by the graphic format. Second, a large body of work reworks folklore, extending or altering the tales to renew the stories and adapt them from their traditional structure and cultures. A third method of employing folklore is using stock motifs, themes, and characters to tell original stories, frequently reconstructing the characters, their origin stories, and their relationships with other folklore characters in entirely new settings. The fourth way folklore is commonly used in comic books is to insert partial or entire tales into ongoing storylines rather than constituting the main action.

The most evident change in the use of folklore by contemporary comic book creators is that folklore is often reworked rather than retold; the intersection between the world of folklore and comic books has become more vital than ever. There is concern, however, that people in modern society are no longer conversant with traditional folklore and may need to recognize the allusions, reworkings, and adaptations being employed.

Straightforward Adaptations of Traditional Folklore

Straightforward adaptations have been adapted only to fit the comic book mode of storytelling, retaining the modified tale's basic storyline, main characters, and original setting, both time and place. In successful adaptations, dialogue and the pacing of the traditional oral stories are well served with thoughtful panel arrangements, evocative illustrations, and adept speech balloons. The timeless relevance and archetypal characters and themes of myths and legends are treated to significant effect in Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze (1998- ) series about the Trojan War, Erik Evensen's Gods of Asgard (2007), and both Gareth Hinds's Beowulf (2007) and Chris Ryall and Gabriel Rodriguez's Beowulf (2007), the latter based on the eponymous film by Neil Gaiman. Two other highly recommended titles are mpMann and A. David Lewis's Some New Kind of Slaughter, or Lost in the Flood (and How We Found Home Again): Diluvian Myths from Around the World (2007) and P. Craig Russell's The Ring of the Nibelung (2002), retelling Richard Wagner's Ring cycle opera based on Germanic folklore. Charles Vess's Book of Ballads (2004) illustrates traditional English and Scottish ballads, and Derek McCulloch and Shepherd Hendrix explore a traditional American ballad in their Stagger Lee (2006).

Since the beginning of North American comic book production, many sequential reproductions of folk and fairy tales have been published for audiences of all ages. Modern titles include compilations of stories such as Little Lit: Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies (2000)edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise MoulyJonathan Vankin's The Big Book of Grimm (1999), and Trickster: Native American Tales (2010)edited by Matt Dembicki with key participation from American Indian storytellers and artists. Equally successful are single-edition comic book variants of traditional tales, such as Will Eisner's The Princess and the Frog (1999) and Sundiata: A Legend of Africa (2003) for younger readers and Hinds's Bearskin (1998) for older audiences.

Reworkings of Traditional Folklore

A renaissance has been underway in the creative reworking of traditional folklore in popular culture, including comics. The new narratives extend stories established in the traditional tales by placing the newly crafted storylines in a different setting or playing with the genre. Reworking the folklore may include a significant setting transformation in stories from diverse cultures. Both Rapunzel's Revenge (2008), by Shannon and Dale Hale and illustrated by Nathan Hale, and Seven Sons (2006), by Alexander Grecian and Riley Rossmo, are single tales newly realized in the American Wild West. A series of Jewish folktales in Steve Sheinkin's Rabbi Harvey series (2006–10) also occur in the legendary Wild West.

Other reworkings may result from the illustrative style employed to tell the tale, as in Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas's Red: A Haida Manga (2009). Still others arise from the incorporation of recognizable superheroes in the storyline, as in Terry LeBan and Rebecca Guay's Green Lantern: 1001 Emerald Nights (2001), in which the comic book character Green Lantern meets the mesmerizing Scheherazade from the Alf layla wa-layla (fifteenth century; Arabian Nights' Entertainments, 1706–08).

In another successful example, the nursery tale of the Three Little Pigs is reworked in J. D. Arnold and Richard Koslowski's BB Wolf and the Three LPs (2010) to tell a dark tale of murder, the blues, and retribution in the Mississippi Delta in the early part of the twentieth century. A horror series aimed at older readers, Grimm Fairy Tales (2005- ) incorporates the retelling of folklore tales as a teaching tool into a larger frame story that, while clever, eclipses the storyline with pinup artwork.

Among the first titles that come to mind when discussing reworkings of mythology is that of Thor, who first appeared in comics in 1962. However, this character has little in common with his traditional Norse mythological counterpart besides the ability to control thunder and lightning, the magic hammer, and his homeland of Asgard. Thor: Son of Asgard (2007), by Akira Yoshida and Greg Tocchini, does attempt to connect the character more directly to his mythological pedigree.

Folklore Characters Reconstructed

Along with the reworking of entire tales, there is a wide variety of narratives incorporating folklore motifs, themes, and well-known and lesser-known characters in comic book series. This is particularly effective in Gaiman's The Sandman series (1989–96), in which characters from classical mythology, such as Hecate, Morpheus, and Orpheus, interact with characters from the fairy realm and elsewhere. The Sandman paved the way for other series in which characters from nursery rhymes, folk and fairy tales, myths, and legends coexist simultaneously. Japanese folklore motifs and characters are intertwined with characters from Japanese history in Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo (1987- ). Mike Mignola's Hellboy (1994) incorporates stories from the world of folklore and renowned characters from Russian folklore, such as Baba Yaga and Koshchei the Deathless. Titles as diverse as Nick Percival's Legends: The Enchanted (2010), Bill Willingham's Fables (2002–15; 2022), Jack of Fables (2006–11), and Linda Medley's Castle Waiting (1996–2010) all epitomize the model of incorporating classic folklore characters and motifs into original and vibrant tales.

Numerous folklore characters are found in multiple comic book universes. In addition to Hellboy, the horrific witch Baba Yaga manifests herself in Fables and The Books of Magic (1990–91). The Faerie Queen is found in The Sandman, The Books of Magic, and Mike Carey and Jon Bolton's God Save the Queen (2007), while Bigfoot, Wendigo, and other legendary monsters coexist in the Grecian and Rossmo series Proof (2007–11), Beau Smith's Wynonna Earp: The Yeti Wars (2010), Doug TenNapel's Flink (2007), and Marian Churchland's Beast (2009). These appearances are too numerous to list but provide hours of amusement for comic books and folklore readers.

Folklore in Ongoing Story Lines

Folklore allusions abound in the comic book format, particularly in the superhero and fantasy genres, but often in surprising places. Several examples of this phenomenon stand out. In Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece's Incognegro (2008), the main character escapes captivity by emulating the actions of the traditional trickster Brer Rabbit. A concise version of the traditional tale is told within the storyline so that audiences unfamiliar with the tale are aware of what has just occurred. Other trickster characters and motifs are also present throughout the comic book world. In the short story "Street Magic" in Minor Miracles (2000), Eisner reworks a Jewish trickster tale as part of a lesson in surviving gang warfare in the Bronx in the early twentieth century. David Mack sprinkles American Indian tales and folklore motifs in Daredevil: Echo—Vision Quest (2004) in his story of Maya Lopez's search for her identity. Sloth (2006), by Gilbert Hernandez, incorporates contemporary urban legends in its storyline, while Gene Luen Yang integrates the ancient Chinese myth of the Monkey King in American Born Chinese (2006).

In Almost American Girl: An Illustrated Memoir (2020), author Robin Ha incorporates folklore images from her childhood in South Korea. Juni Ba's Djeliya (2021) melds folklore genres from his native Senegal with science fiction and fantasy. Henry Barajas's Helm Greycastle is the central graphic novel figure in a series borrowed from Aztec imagery that began in 2021.

Impact

Folktales and fairy tales have often been considered light entertainment for young listeners and readers, and, indeed, many picture-book retellings have been aimed at the juvenile audience. However, the use of folklore in comic books has moved many of these reworkings away from the expected reading audience. Many comics are published in imprints aimed at mature readers, whether the folklore is a classic folktale or a more severe myth. Classical Greek, Roman, and Norse gods and heroes have been the prototypes for many comic book superheroes, and thus, the idea of borrowing folklore has been part of the comic book culture from its beginnings. Collecting folklore references in the comic book format has become an almost overwhelming task as titles referring to mythology, legends, and folklore continued to be published with varying success; comic book writers such as Gaiman, Mignola, and Willingham succeeded in creating enduring series imbued with folklore that has increased the popularity of the marriage between folklore and comics.

Bibliography

Altmann, Anna E., and Gail A. de Vos. Tales, Then and Now: More Folktales as Literary Fictions for Young Adults. Libraries Unlimited, 2001.

Auaintance, Zack. "For These Comic Artists, Heritage and Folklore Are Superpowers." NPR, 27 Aug. 2021, www.npr.org/2021/08/27/1031382980/for-these-comic-artists-heritage-and-folklore-are-superpowers. Accessed 18 July 2024.

De Vos, Gail A. Stories from Songs: Ballads as Literary Fictions for Young Adults. Westport, Libraries Unlimited, 2009.

De Vos, Gail A., and Anna E. Altmann. New Tales for Old: Folktales as Literary Fictions for Young Adults. Libraries Unlimited, 1999.

Lewis, A. David, and Christine Hoff Kraemer, editors. Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels. Continuum, 2010.

"10 Graphic Novels Based on Irish and Celtic Mythology." Irish Myths, 15 Apr. 2021, rishmyths.com/2021/04/15/irish-graphic-novels. Accessed 18 July 2024.