Jokers and Thieves: A Graphic Novel

This thesis breaks down the ideas and processes of an adaptation. It investigates the methods for adapting artistic materials from one medium to another and how my process changed the more I learned. Originally this was to reconcile my own influences but soon became an observation on how my views on storytelling evolved. The oxford dictionary defines Adaptation as “changing something, or of being changed, to suit a new purpose or situation.” This is a broad category but as used by this paper it’s the repurposing of work to a new style or medium. In this thesis, I adapt Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower,” into a graphic novel to further explore the meaning of the word. I chose this work because I find it compelling from a thematic and visual standpoint but also because it has never been adapted before. Songs have been commonly adapted into visual form in the past through movies, music videos, and art pieces. I set myself apart from these mediums by adapting my work into a graphic novel. Graphic novels don’t lend themselves to the fast-paced nature of music videos and require active participation, but they have benefits to them. They allow for tone setting and storytelling like music videos but don’t have to adhere to a time structure. They allow more in-depth storytelling with plot and character development, due to their longer form. At first, the research consisted of gathering resources to inspire my graphic novel. These resources included artists’ works, other graphic novels, books, short stories, songs, and movies. They gave me an initial base to build the setting of the graphic novel. I changed my development process from research-based to intuition, later in the project, Moving from sources and inspiration to my own knowledge of aesthetics and storytelling. This showed how my views on what adaption meant evolved with the thesis. The final documents go into more detail with these steps and my growth as an artist as well as showing my final product