The Florida-based publisher will launch the first four volumes of its Bible adaptation this year, covering the Old Testament up until the book of Judges, with the remaining eight graphic novels– which will cover the New Testament as well as concluding the Old – to be published next year.
I picture the writers sat in front of a sheet of paper headed BIBLE ADAPTATION, blank but for rudimentary fight scenes doodled in the margins waiting for their desktop Jesus figurine to radiate beams of divine dramatic structure on to the page.
Mark Goodacre, a New Testament scholar at Duke University who was one of several academics who consulted on Downey and Burnett's script, said there are bound to be questions of interpretation, accuracy and "what's included and not included" in any Bible adaptation.
Sometimes, said Ayris, readers "try to push on me a bit about what Bible version we use"; to combat this, the publisher will list Bible verses at the bottom of each page of its graphic adaptation, so that readers can "refer to whatever version they prefer".
But let's return to the Bible's version, for it is the single, wicked twist that the biblical scribes emphasized in their adaptation, that lingers with us now: the wholesale and unequivocal indictment of humanity.
Bible stories and literary adaptations, it was felt, could secure a better future for the cinema.
He and his partner in creating the show, Stephen Merchant, met with Mr. Silverman and Mr. Daniels in a conference room at the Groucho Club in London and together wrote what is known in television as the American adaptation's "bible".
According to Ayris, Kingstone's 12-volume version will be "the most complete graphic adaptation of the Bible ever done".
A 12-stepper's adaptation of the Bible.
The news begs the question: who would you cast in the main roles in a movie adaptation of the Bible?
