Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: abrams, Chronicle Books, cormac mccarthy, Manu Larcenet Graphic Novel, The Road

Manu Larcenet Adapts Cormac McCarthy's The Road as a Graphic Novel

Cormac McCarthy's The Road is being adapted as a graphic novel for the first time by Franch comic book creator Manu Larcenet.

Published Sat, 10 Aug 2024 10:57:09 -0500

by Rich Johnston

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Article Summary

Manu Larcenet adapts Cormac McCarthy's The Road into a graphic novel, approved by McCarthy's estate.
The adaptation captures the stark, harsh world of McCarthy’s prose through Larcenet’s detailed ink drawings.
The Road, a Pulitzer-winning novel, follows a father and son's journey across a post-apocalyptic landscape.
Set for release in September 2024, the graphic novel is praised as a masterpiece by Abrams Comic Arts' Rodolphe Lachat.

Cormac McCarthy's The Road is being adapted as a graphic novel for the first time by Franch comic book creator Manu Larcenet. It will be published in September by Abrams & Chronicle Books. Cormac McCarthy died in June 2023, but the project was approved by McCarthy and his estate before his death. It states that the graphic novel adaptation of The Road "beautifully transforms the world depicted by McCarthy's spare and brutal prose into stark ink drawings". Bleeding Coolm has a preview below.

The Road, published in 2006, is a post-apocalyptic novel by Cormac McCarthy in which "The landscape is destroyed. Nothing moves save the ash on the wind. Cruel, lawless men stalk the roadside, lying in wait. Attempting to survive in this brave new world, the young boy and his protector have nothing but a pistol to defend themselves. They must keep walking", the gruelling journey of a father and his young son over a period of several months across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed industrial civilization and nearly all life. The novel won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2006 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. It was made into a film in 2009, directed by John Hillcoat, starring Viggo Mortensen.

Rodolphe Lachat, vice president and publisher of Abrams Comic Arts, said: "Manu Larcenet spent months and months reading and rereading each line of the novel to grasp all the subtleties and to perfectly understand the atmosphere that made The Road such a peculiar and unique text. The result is one of the strongest comics I have ever read, where each panel, each shot, each situation grips the reader in a way few graphic novels can do. This book is not only the graphic adaptation of a masterpiece, it is a masterpiece in itself."

Larcenet added: "Drawing is a different language, but I believe I have been completely faithful to the novel and its author. I wrote to Cormac McCarthy, he saw my first boards, but unfortunately, he passed away before the end of the album. I hope I understood his novel as he would have wanted. I am convinced that I share much of his vision and I hope that my album will be received as a tribute to an immense writer."

Cormac McCarthy's The Road by Manu Larcenet is published on the 24th of September, 2024.