Graphic Atwood
‘My 87 year-old grandma just got her first look at my Handmaid’s Tale adaptation.’
So tweets Vancouver-born artist Renée Nault, illustrator behind the just-released graphic novel. Grandma opens it: ‘gasps “oh, it’s this kind of book!!” …she didn’t realize it was a graphic novel, she thought I’d spent all this time doing chapter heading illustrations. Her mind is still blown.’
Nault’s grandmother is not the only one who is gasping at this gorgeous new version of Atwood’s intense 1985 novel. Excerpts from the 2019 Atwood/Nault book below.
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‘I had a lot of freedom to design and interpret the book according to my own vision,’ Nault explains in an interview with Comicon. ‘Margaret and the editors were always there to oversee things, and to help out if I got stuck, but for the most part I was given free reign. I’m very honoured by the trust they had in me as an artist and storyteller.’
‘I wanted my design of the Handmaid’s uniform to look very strange – heavy, uncomfortable, unflattering,’ she adds. ‘I also wanted it to have a strong visual shape that could be simplified down to something almost abstract – a wide triangle of red. The hood introduces an extra element of confinement and discomfort.’
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