The Hobbit in prose and comics: exploring intersemiotic relations

This paper investigates the intersemiotic relations between J.R.R. Tolkien's prose novel The Hobbit (1937) and the homonym graphic novel by David Wenzel and Charles Dixon (1990). The study aims to explore the specific characteristics and challenges involved in adapting a literary work from a verbal to a verbo-visual sign system. Our approach involved a review of relevant bibliographical sources and an analytical-expository method. We first contextualized the historical development of Anglophone comics, drawing on the works of Babic (2016) and Kukkonen (2013). We then examined comics as a distinct sign system, utilizing Groensteen’s (2015) theoretical perspectives to understand their unique elements. Afterwards, we explored key concepts of intersemiotic adaptation, translation, and transposition as respectively articulated by Eco (2001), Jakobson (1995), and Plaza (1987), among other scholars. By comparing these theoretical frameworks with the characteristics of both works, we aimed to determine the most accurate description of their relationship. Our analysis concluded that the relationship between the novel and the graphic novel is best characterized as an intersemiotic transposition. This finding aligns with Plaza’s (1987) concept of Index Translation and is supported by arguments on the role of the translator as discussed by Eco (2001), Pina (2014), and Plaza (1987).