“Crime and Punishment”, Done Golden-Age “Batman” Style

Brian Hughes’ blog on comics, Again with the Comics, has something for you folks who like both classic literature and comic books from the “golden age”: Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, done in the style of Batman when it was illustrated by Dick Sprang.

Click to see the page on its original page at full size.

Click to see the page on its original page at full size.

The comic originally appeared in the comics magazine Drawn and Quarterly in 2000, which is apparently out of print.

Here’s what Hughes has to say about the comic:

This marriage of Classic Russian Literature and the Caped Crusader of Gotham also serves as further proof, if any were needed, that everything is better with Batman.

I’ve read the original, and this pretty accurately sums it up, albeit a lot less wordily and a lot more Batmannishly.

The comic was written and illustrated by one R. Sikoryak, who’s does Masterpiece Comics, other “mash-ups” of popular comics and fine literature, such as Good Ol’ Gregor Brown, where Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis (here’s a summary, and here’s the full text) goes through the Peanuts filter:

…or my favourite, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (here’s a summary, here’s the full text) as done by Beavis and Butt-Head:

[Thanks to Metafilter for the link!]