For a long time, mention graphic novels and most people probably thought of superheroes. Batman. Spider-Man. The Avengers. Huge comic runs collected into equally huge compendiums.
But take a look at the graphic novel shelves now and something has definitely changed. From ‘Dune’ and ‘Sapiens’ to ‘Call Me by Your Name’ and the upcoming ‘Fourth Wing’, more of our favourite books are being reimagined as beautiful graphic novels, using striking artwork to pull us into familiar stories in a completely new way.
Graphic novels have obviously never just been about superheroes, but there is still a lingering perception that they're mostly comic collections, manga or books for younger readers. That really doesn't reflect what is sitting on the shelves anymore.
Publishers are increasingly taking books we already know and love and asking a very interesting question: what would this story look like?
And I don't mean adding a few illustrations between chapters. A graphic novel adaptation rebuilds a prose book using sequential art. Pages of description can become one beautifully detailed image. Internal monologues have to be condensed, visualised or sometimes removed entirely. Colour can establish a mood before you've read a single word, while the scale of an illustration can make you feel tiny beside a dragon, sandworm or god.
That's also why it's worth understanding what you're buying. Some graphic novels set out to adapt the complete story, albeit necessarily condensing and rewriting the prose for sequential art. Others are much freer reinterpretations or, in the case of nonfiction, rework the original material into something quite different.
They're not simply novels with pictures. At their best, they're visual interpretations of books we thought we already knew.
And now ‘Fourth Wing’ is getting one
If there was any doubt that graphic adaptations are moving firmly into the mainstream, this probably settles it. Rebecca Yarros is adapting ‘Fourth Wing’ into a graphic novel herself.
‘Fourth Wing: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1’ is due in 2027 and is planned as the first volume of the graphic adaptation rather than the entire novel squeezed into one book. That gives the adaptation room to bring Basgiath, the parapet, Threshing and, most importantly, the dragons into full visual form.
And I have QUESTIONS. What will Xaden look like? Violet? Tairn? Sgaeyl?!
But the dragons are also where I think the appeal of this format becomes obvious. Reading about Tairn appearing beside Violet is one thing. Turning the page and seeing an enormous illustration that makes Violet look tiny beside him could be something else entirely.
The right artwork doesn't just show you the story. It can pull you into it.
YA favourites are getting the graphic treatment too
‘Fourth Wing’ isn't alone. Meg Cabot's ‘The Princess Diaries’ has been transformed into a full-colour graphic novel illustrated by Bethany Crandall. This is a graphic adaptation of Mia's original story, rather than simply an illustrated edition of Cabot's novel, with Cabot herself adapting the book for the new format.
Instead of only reading Mia's famously chaotic thoughts about discovering she's a princess, we now get to see the awkwardness and disasters unfolding around her. And that's where illustrations can add something completely different. An expression can deliver a joke before the dialogue does. An awkward silence can occupy an entire panel.
Jenny Han's ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ has also made the jump, adapted by Barbara Perez Marquez with artwork by Akimaro and Li Lu. Again, this is a graphic retelling of the original novel, with the story condensed and adapted for sequential art rather than the complete prose simply being illustrated.
And I think these books are particularly interesting because we're not talking about superheroes or huge action sequences. We're talking about romance, embarrassment, family, friendship, facial expressions, awkward silences and crushes.
It turns out graphic novels can do all of those things incredibly well.
Swipe through The Princess Diaries:
Swipe through To all the Boys I've Loved Before:
So how different are they from the books?
Quite different, actually.
Even when a graphic novel adapts the whole story, that doesn't mean it contains the whole original text. Take a 400-page novel and you simply can't put every sentence into speech bubbles and captions. The plot might remain intact, but the storytelling has to change.
Description is the obvious example. An author might spend paragraphs establishing a landscape, while an artist can establish it in one spectacular double-page spread. Instead of being told that a place is enormous, beautiful or terrifying, you can simply see it.
But the opposite happens with internal thoughts. A novelist can spend pages inside a character's head while barely a second passes in the outside world. A graphic adaptation has to decide how much of that narration to keep and how much can be communicated through expressions, body language, colour, shadows and composition.
So a good graphic adaptation isn't necessarily trying to reproduce every word of the original. It's translating the complete experience into another storytelling language.
And some books make that translation particularly interesting.
‘Dune’ becomes a world you can actually see
Frank Herbert's ‘Dune’ is famously dense. Politics, religion, ecology, family histories, competing factions and a LOT happening inside people's heads.
The graphic adaptation by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson is a full adaptation of Herbert's original novel spread across three graphic novels, rather than a one-volume summary.
And this is one where the artwork really sells the idea.
The story is still Paul's, but now Arrakis is right there. The endless desert, the stillsuits, the ornithopters, the palaces and, of course, those enormous sandworms all become part of the reading experience. You don't have to stop and construct Arrakis in your imagination because the artists have created their version of it around you.
Does that make it better than Herbert's original? I don't think that's really the question. It's another way into an enormous story, and a beautiful way to revisit it if you've already read the book.
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‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ almost feels made for it
Matt Dinniman's ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ is chaotic, violent, funny and heavily influenced by gaming. Earth becomes a giant televised dungeon crawl while Carl and Princess Donut attempt to survive increasingly ridiculous levels as the universe watches.
It's already an incredibly visual concept, so seeing the series become a WEBTOON and then a graphic novel feels less like compressing a prose book and more like unleashing something that was waiting to become visual.
There is an important distinction here though. The WEBTOON graphic novels are an adaptation of the story, not simply each original novel converted one-for-one into a graphic edition. ‘Dungeon Crawler Carl, Vol. 1 (Graphic Novel)’ continues that visual adaptation rather than representing a graphic version of prose Book One specifically.
The format also means the monsters, dungeon environments, game mechanics and increasingly ridiculous situations can explode across the page. And, honestly, seeing Princess Donut's expressions may be reason enough.
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‘The Odyssey’ and ‘The Iliad’ show just how powerful imagery can be
Then there are the classics. Gareth Hinds has adapted both of Homer's great epics into graphic novels, with ‘The Odyssey: A Graphic Novel’ and ‘The Iliad: A Graphic Novel’ retelling the major events of the original works in condensed visual form. They aren't the complete translated texts, but they take readers through the stories of Odysseus and the Trojan War using sequential art.
And really, what better candidates are there? Gods. Warriors. Cyclopes. Sirens. Shipwrecks. Monsters. The Trojan Horse. These are stories filled with imagery that almost demands to be illustrated.
Hinds' artwork is a huge part of the experience, dropping you into stormy seas, bloody battlefields and enormous encounters with gods and monsters. People have been visually interpreting Homer's epics for thousands of years, and these graphic novels offer another way to experience them. For readers who already know the stories, it's a completely new interpretation. For anyone who has always wanted to tackle Homer but never quite managed it, they provide another way in.
Swipe through 'The Odyssey':
Swipe through 'The Iliad':
‘The Hobbit’ brings Middle-earth to life
Few books seem better suited to a graphic adaptation than ‘The Hobbit’. J.R.R. Tolkien's journey through Middle-earth is packed with trolls, goblins, enormous landscapes and, of course, Smaug, and the graphic novel adapted by Charles Dixon and illustrated by David Wenzel turns the complete story into a condensed visual retelling, rather than reproducing Tolkien's full text.
Wenzel's detailed watercolour artwork is a huge part of its appeal, giving us another vision of the Shire, Mirkwood, the Lonely Mountain and Smaug while still following Bilbo's original adventure. You lose some of Tolkien's distinctive narration, but gain a beautifully illustrated Middle-earth that can pull you straight into the journey.
Swipe through 'The Hobbit':
Sapiens’ is something completely different
Perhaps the best example of why we shouldn't assume every graphic adaptation works the same way is ‘Sapiens’.
Yes, Yuval Noah Harari's history of humankind has become a graphic novel series. But this one is not simply the complete original ‘Sapiens’ converted page-by-page into pictures.
Harari worked with David Vandermeulen and illustrator Daniel Casanave to completely rethink the material for the format. The graphic series introduces characters, conversations, humour and visual metaphors to explore the ideas from the original book, with the material spread across multiple volumes.
That makes it much more of a visual reimagining than a straightforward adaptation.
And it works because some ideas are simply easier to grasp when you can see them happening. Complicated concepts can become diagrams, characters can walk us through historical events and humour can break up some very big discussions about humanity.
Graphic adaptations aren't only another way to experience a story. They can be another way to understand an idea.
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And then there's ‘Call Me by Your Name’
This is perhaps the title that really proves how far we've moved from the idea of graphic novels being synonymous with superhero comics.
André Aciman's ‘Call Me by Your Name’ is a story driven by longing, memory, desire and all the complicated things its characters don't necessarily say out loud. ‘Call Me by Your Name: The Graphic Novel’ takes that story and adapts it into sequential art rather than simply reproducing Aciman's complete prose with illustrations.
Which makes the adaptation fascinating before you even open it. How do you draw longing? How do you turn silence into a panel? How do you take the atmosphere of an Italian summer that Aciman builds through prose and communicate it through images?
This is where beautiful artwork can do something prose can't. Sunlight, colour, expressions and seemingly insignificant moments can fill a page. A glance between two characters can suddenly carry as much weight as a paragraph.
It's almost the complete opposite of ‘Dune’, yet both can work in the same format. One gives us enormous deserts and sandworms. The other gives us quiet moments, atmosphere and emotion.
And that might be the best argument for how much graphic novels have evolved.
Swipe through 'Call Me by Your Name':
Are graphic novels replacing the original books?
For me, no. They're a different way of experiencing them.
The prose may be condensed, but in its place you get colour, composition and beautiful artwork that can pull you straight into the story. One version lets you imagine the world yourself, while the other lets you step inside someone else's vision of it.
For years, a book "adaptation" meant a movie or TV series. Graphic novels now offer something in between, and from ‘Dune’ and ‘Call Me by Your Name’ to the upcoming ‘Fourth Wing’, they're becoming another way to fall in love with a favourite book.
