In what has turned into a big day for comics, in separate announcements Charlaine Harris, author of the bestselling Sookie Stackhouse prose novels, signed a deal with Penguin’s Ace Books imprint to publish Cemetery Girl, an original graphic novel trilogy; and DC Entertainment’s Vertigo imprint announced plans to publish graphic novel adaptations of the late Steig Larrson’s bestselling Millenium trilogy prose novels.
The hit TV series True Blood is based on Harris’s popular Sookie Stackhouse novels. Cemetery Girl is a paranormal/fantasy mystery novel about a teenage girl with amnesia living alone in a cemetery. It is Harris’ first effort at creating an original graphic novel series (IDW publishes a graphic novel series based on the True Blood TV show) and she will collaborate on the graphic novels with fantasy writer Christopher Golden and with artist Don Kramer. The first book in the graphic novel series will be released in 2013. All eight of the Sookie Stackhouse novels have appeared on the New York Times bestseller lists.
Harris said she had the plot of Cemetery Girl, “in my head for a year when Chris suggested I re-imagine it as a graphic novel. Suddenly the project made a lot more sense. Since Chris has more experience in the the graphic novel field than I do, we agreed to team up for my first ever collaboration. This is an exciting venture for both of us.”
Working in conjunction with the estate of Steig Larsson and the Hedlund Literary Agency, DC Entertainment and its Vertigo imprint will adapt Larrson’s Millennium Trilogy novels—the books have sold more than 60 million copies— into a series of graphic novels. Each book in the trilogy will be adapted into two graphic novel volumes available in print and digital formats. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo graphic novel volumes will be released in 2012 and graphic adaptations of The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nests will be released in 2014.
Dan DiDio, copublisher of DC Entertaiment, parent company of DC Comics/Vertigo, said, “The intricate characters and stories Larsson created in the Millennium Trilogy are a perfect match for the graphic novel format, where we can bring Lisbeth Salander to life in entirely new, visually compelling ways.”
“Stieg always liked comics and it will be exciting to see the unforgettable characters he created come to life on the comics page,” said Joakim Larsson, younger brother of the journalist and novelist, who died in 2004.
