Dear Mar Shiprim readers,
Happy New Year! To kick off 2025 we invite you to take a look at Mar Shiprim’s newly established YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MarShiprim.
Sit back and relax as Eric Cline and Glynnis Fawkes kindly join us to discuss their collaborative adaptation of 1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed into a full color graphic history, while sharing their thoughts on future projects.
Is there more YouTube content you’d like to see? Let us know at marshiprim@iaaassyriology.com.
With best wishes for the year ahead,
Pavla Rosenstein
Mar Shiprim Editor
In the Spotlight: Eric Cline and Glynnis Fawkes discuss collaborating on a graphic adaptation of 1177 B.C.
Click on the video above to hear from Eric Cline, Professor of Archaeology and Classics at the George Washington University, and Glynnis Fawkes, illustrator and instructor at the Center for Cartoon Studies, about the collaborative process of adapting Eric Cline’s 1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed into a graphic history (pictured right).
How do an academic and an artist work together to produce an image-driven historical account suitable for ages seven and up, cutting an estimated 80% of the words in the process? It was Princeton University Press editor Rob Tempio, who initially suggested a graphic adaptation to Cline and Fawkes. “I was totally daunted,” jokes Fawkes, when recalling the initial pitch. Nevertheless she and Cline quickly established a process of weekly draft and feedback sessions in order to translate the narrative into “the language of comics,” as Cline likes to describe it. Fawkes explains, “I’ve tried to include one to one of the facts and information that are in the original 1177 B. C.,” while Cline adds that “it was very much a collaboration, but in terms of Glynnis taking the lead, and I was almost, I would say, the consultant giving feedback at every turn.”
Prof. Eric Cline and illustrator Glynnis Fawkes (all images courtesy of Glynnis Fawkes)
An example of written text adapted for illustration
While remaining faithful to the historical narrative of the 2021 revised version of the monograph, the graphic adaptation introduces two young fictional characters – Pel and Shesha – who navigate their environments following events attributed to the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Modern cultural references, such as an adapted quote from the 2004 comedy film Mean Girls, as well as imagined conversations between fictional Bronze Age characters going about their daily lives are inserted into the dialogue. “That was my absolute favourite thing – to sort of dramatize these moments in history. And of course I’m not saying this is what happened, but this is what could have happened or here’s a funny version of what might have happened,” says Fawkes. Cline adds that “there are jokes on almost every page,” to which readers of a wide range of ages can relate on different levels, while reading the book together.
The graphic history introduces imagine everyday dialogue and two fictional narrators: Pel and Shesha
Marketing the graphic novel provided a new challenge. Initially, the intended audience was ages seven to seventeen within the so-called Young Adult (YA) market, however this was not always clear at the point of sale. Fawkes recalls a visit to the Powell’s bookstore in Portland, Oregon, where the book was initially shelved in the ancient history section on the third floor, as well as in the YA non-fiction graphic section, a new category that occupies a large section at Powell’s. Nevertheless the book is reaching new audiences. “I’ve gotten a couple of emails where the high school teacher has assigned it as summer reading,” says Cline, while also sharing feedback from adults, especially those for whom English is a second language, who found that the graphic adaptation made the narrative more comprehensible. Cline is observing a broader trend when it comes to comic adaptations of academic works. “I’m hoping that we are at the beginning of a wave of new things,” he says, also noting the recent graphic adaptation of Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari and Steven and Ben Nadler’s original graphic history Heretics!
Marketing is a significant part of producing academic titles for the general public – at the history section at Powell’s book store in the Portland, Oregon
Do the authors have any advice for those embarking on similar projects? Fawkes points out the importance of bearing in mind the duality of the image and text so that they do not duplicate information but rather interact with each other, recalling a former editor’s remark that “it’s not combining words and pictures but graphic design and poetry.” Both Fawkes and Cline also note that the process is rewarding in terms of engaging with the research topic in a new way. For Cline, this was learning about “how to even better bring the ancient past to a modern audience of general readers that are not specialists but are interested in the ancient world,” while for Fawkes it was experiencing a connection to those who have been impacted by the events outlined in the book: “whether it is migrants today or Sea Peoples of the Late Bronze Age who were forced from their homes by climate change or war, I gained sympathy while drawing these pages for other people in the world whose lives are upended by historical events beyond their control — including ourselves.”
Watch the full interview with Eric Cline and Glynnis Fawkes on Mar Shiprim’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@MarShiprim
By Pavla Rosenstein