Slaughter-House Five is out September 16, 2020. — **Slaughter-House Five** is out September 16, 2020.

By Zack Quaintance — I have read Kurt Vonnegut’s seminal anti-war novel, Slaughter-House Five, maybe five times, making it the novel I’ve re-read the most in my life. I read it the first time in high school. I read it again in college when I went through a counter-culture 1960s literature fascination. I read it in my early 20s when I first started to write my own prose fiction, wanting to study Vonnegut’s use of distinctive voice, and I read it again with my wife soon after, who’d never read the book herself. I’ve read most of Vonnegut’s other novels, too. Vonnegut and his work are, quite obviously, something I enjoy.

All of this is a long-winded way to note that I am familiar with the source material for the new Slaughter-House Five graphic novel, out this week from publisher BOOM! Studios’ Archaia imprint. Going in, I wasn’t dreading this adaptation, as some who fiercely guard their own favorite works might have suspected. I suppose there is a circumstance in which I could feel protective of this work, which has long-defied rewarding translation to other mediums. Yet, this book featured an A+ comics creative team with writer Ryan North (Unbeatable Squirrel Girl) and the incredible Spanish artist, Albert Monteys. When it was announced, I was excited.

And now I’m happy to report that reading the book this weekend for review was an immensely rewarding experience, although perhaps not in the ways that I suspected it to be. The subject matter was familiar of course, yet the book did not read like what I had in mind when I cracked it. It didn’t feel like my own interpretation of the novel, nor did the visuals synch all that directly with what I’ve long had in my head while reading the prose. All of that is fine. Vonnegut’s masterpiece is so creative and distinct, that no two interpretations are likely to ever share that much in common. So it goes.

None of that soured my experience while reading. In fact, in some ways this variation from my expectations pushed me to enjoy the familiar work in new and different ways, which is perhaps the highest praise one can give to an adaptation. North and Monteys work here highlighted passages from this book in a distinctively modern lens, teasing out thoughts, ideas, and questions that had always been there, buried beneath the surface under the pastiche of anti-war remembrance and smattered sci-fi.

The segment of the book I think of specifically here is a bit about income inequality. There are several pages of this new graphic novel lifted essentially whole from Slaughter-House, in which America is described as the richest country with the poorest citizens. This, obviously, has always been in the book, but I’d never noticed it while reading in different eras. Now in 2020 that wealth inequities have become a seering topic of national import, it’s natural for some of the focus of the adaptation to be on that part, and I sure am glad the creators decided to spotlight it.

This isn’t an isolated incidence either. In fact, I think the greatest strength of this new adaptation is the way it filters this masterwork through a 2020 lens, rather than relying on the counterculture ideas of the era in which it was created. There’s a lot of universality in Vonnegut’s novel. There has to be, otherwise it wouldn’t be remembered today. This book fearlessly seeks to capture that modern universality, rather than double-down on nostalgia and established strengths. It’s all a very bold choice, and I think it pays off mightily, creating a new book that will fit well as a companion piece on bookshelves like mine, while at the same time pulling in new readers to this rich narrative tapestry.

Slaughter-House Five Graphic Novel

Slaughter-House Five
Story: Kurt Vonnegut
Writer: Ryan North
Artist: Albert Monteys
Color Assistance: Richard Zaplana
Publisher: BOOM! Studios - Archaia
Price: $19.99
With Kurt Vonnegut's seminal anti-war story, Slaughterhouse-Five, Eisner Award-winning writer Ryan North (Unbeatable Squirrel Girl) and Eisner Award-nominated artist Albert Monteys (Universe!) translate a literary classic into comic book form in the tradition of A Wrinkle in Time and Fight Club 2. Billy Pilgrim has read Kilgore Trout and opened a successful optometry business. Billy Pilgrim has built a loving family and witnessed the firebombing of Dresden. Billy Pilgrim has traveled to the planet Tralfamadore and met Kurt Vonnegut. Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. Slaughterhouse-Five is at once a farcical look at the horror and tragedy of war where children are placed on the frontlines and die (so it goes), and a moving examination of what it means to be a fallible human.
Release Date: September 16, 2020
Buy It Digitally: Slaughter-House Five

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.