Parable of the Sower: A Graphic Novel Adaptation (Hugo Award Winner)

by Octavia E. Butler, Damian Duffy (Adapted by), John Jennings (Illustrator), Nalo Hopkinson (Introduction)

Overview

The acclaimed graphic novel adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s groundbreaking dystopian novel, Parable of the Sower, is a don't-miss classic that resonates today more than ever. As The Washington Post noted: "A 1993 dystopian novel imagined the world in 2024. It’s eerily accurate."

This Hugo Award Winner for Best Graphic Story or Comic is the follow-up to Kindred, a #1 New York Times bestseller.

In this graphic-novel adaptation of Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower by Damian Duffy and John Jennings, the award-winning team behind Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation, the author portrays a searing vision of America’s future.

In the year 2024, the country is marred by unattended environmental and economic crises that lead to social chaos. Lauren Olamina, a preacher’s daughter living in Los Angeles, is protected from danger by the walls of her gated community.

In a night of fire and death, what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: a startling vision of human destiny . . . and the birth of a new faith.

“Alarmingly prescient and relevant. This accessible adaptation is poised to introduce Butler’s dystopian tale to a new generation of readers.” —Publishers Weekly

“The graphic novel is faithful to Butler, yet still fresh in its world building.” —USA Today

Includes an introduction by SFWA Grand Master Nalo Hopkinson

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781419754050
Publisher:	Abrams ComicArts
Publication date:	07/06/2021
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	53,478
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Octavia Estelle Butler (1947–2006), often referred to as the “grand dame of science fiction,” was born in Pasadena, California, on June 22, 1947. She received an Associate of Arts degree in 1968 from Pasadena City College, and also attended California State University in Los Angeles and the University of California, Los Angeles. Butler was the first science-fiction writer to win a MacArthur Fellowship (“genius” grant). She won the PEN Lifetime Achievement Award and the Nebula and Hugo Awards, among others. Her books include Wildseed, Imago, and Parable of the Sower.


Damian Duffy, cartoonist, writer, and comics letterer, is a PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and a founder of Eye Trauma Studios (eyetrauma.net). His first published graphic novel, The Hole: Consumer Culture, created with artist John Jennings, was released by Front 40 Press in 2008. Along with Jennings, Duffy has curated several comics art shows, including Other Heroes: African American Comic Book Creators, Characters and Archetypes and Out of Sequence: Underrepresented Voices in American Comics, and published the art book Black Comix: African American Independent Comics Art and Culture. He has also published scholarly essays in comics form on curation, new media, diversity, and critical pedagogy.


John Jennings is the curator of the Megascope list and illustrator of the graphic novel adaptations of Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred and Parable of the Sower. He is a professor of media and cultural studies at the University of California, Riverside, and was awarded the Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellowship at Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research. He also coedited the Eisner Award-winning anthology The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art.

Interviews

John Jennings lives in Riverside, CA.

Damian Duffy lives in Champaign, IL.

Editorial Reviews

John Jennings’s work succeeds as sequential storytelling and approaches the level of iconography regularly.

The Believer

Jennings and Duffy are some of the most skilled and hardest working comics creators doing the work to radically transform and diversify the comics scene.

Comicosity

…the graphic novel is faithful to Butler, yet still fresh in its world building.

USA Today

…Jennings’ work in the book is beyond stunning…

The Beat

“Duffy and Jennings have done justice to Butler’s work, losing none of the story’s richness and adding an exciting visual element that makes the reading experience even more visceral and engrossing.

STARRED review Foreword Reviews

Jennings has captured [Butler’s] words with visual imagery in such an afrofuturistic, horror-esque way that the images jump off the page with every turn.

Flickering Myth

…alarmingly prescient and relevant…This accessible adaptation is poised to introduce Butler’s dystopian tale to a new generation of readers.”—Publishers Weekly

“…the graphic novel is faithful to Butler, yet still fresh in its world building.”—USA Today

“…Jennings’ work in the book is beyond stunning…”—The Beat

“The Parable of the Sower graphic novel… is as faithful an adaptation as you can get. Not only does it hit all the plot points, it perfectly portrays Butler’s balancing act in regard to how far society has fallen apart.”—Kirkus

“Duffy and Jennings have done justice to Butler’s work, losing none of the story’s richness and adding an exciting visual element that makes the reading experience even more visceral and engrossing.”—Foreword Reviews, STARRED review

“John Jennings’s work succeeds as sequential storytelling and approaches the level of iconography regularly.”—The Believer

“Jennings and Duffy are some of the most skilled and hardest working comics creators doing the work to radically transform and diversify the comics scene.”—Comicosity

“Jennings has captured [Butler’s] words with visual imagery in such an afrofuturistic, horror-esque way that the images jump off the page with every turn.”—Flickering Myth

From the Publisher

“Duffy and Jennings have done justice to Butler’s work, losing none of the story’s richness and adding an exciting visual element that makes the reading experience even more visceral and engrossing.

STARRED review Forward Reviews