# In Praise of Classics Illustrated **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [July 1, 2026, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331 "2026-07-01T13:06:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/1 "2026-07-01T13:06:15Z")
I was brought up on Classics Illustrated. Those comic books that aspired to present classic literature to kids in the form of fumetti-infested sequential art. The bane of teachers, who thought them even worse than Cliff Notes as a crib for students too lazy to read the original text (my own mother was guilty – she bought me a copy of the CI version of _The Iliad_ and kept borrowing it to catch up on her evening literature class) But they served as an introduction to us budding readers, giving us the gist of the stories of classic lit and, ideally, providing encouragement for us to actually read the stuff. The comics ran from the 1940s through the early 1970s, and had a brief revival later, not to mention several imitators and competitors (including Marvel comics, in the 1970s and 1980s). But CI stood apart – those comics that kept getting reprinted, later with those expensive painted covers. Not to mentio Classics Illustrated Junior (with fairy tales, for younger kids) and The World Around Us series, and the Special Editions. What I find interesting, now that I’ve got quite a collection of them, and a CD that has a virtually complete collection of the basic CI comics, is what they chose to include in the collection and, just as telling, what they left out. A lot of the books they include are “classics” only if you stretch your definition. Som of them appear to have been influenced by movies that came out at the time. Some books were obviously chosen because it was thought they would appeal to action-oriented kids, while other, less spectacular works also managed to get included, undoubtedly because they really were classic. A few of the types, and thoughts on them: Jules Verne – The CI editions came out during what I think of as the First Jules Verne Renaissance, when they began to be adapted as movies with sound and color, and when the ARCO/Fitzroy editions edited by I.O. Evans came out, trying to pub lish almost every Verne novel in English. The CI editions include: _Around the World in 80 Days_ _Off on a Comet_ _From the Earth to the Moon_ _The Mysterious Island_ _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ _Tigers and Traitors_ _Robur the Conqueror_ _Master of the World_ _Michael Strogoff_ _A Journey to the Center of the Earth_ I owned all of these, of course. High impact, with impressive scenes and equally impressive ideas. Early science fiction t its best. **H.G. Wells** Well, if you’re going to have Verne, you need Wells, too, and for the same reasons _The Invisible Man_ _War of the Worlds_ _Food of the Gods_ _First Men in the Moon_ _The Time Machine_ **Edgar Allen Poe** Not as many as the others, and they tended to cease production early on _Poe’s Mysteries_ _The Gold Bug and other stories_ The revived Classics Illustrated added _The Raven_ and _The Fall of the House of Usher_ **Washington Irving** _Rip van Winkle_ The revived edition gave us _Th Legend of Sleepy Hollow_ **William Shakespeare** You can’t do classics without Shakespeare _Julius Caesar_ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ _Romeo and Juliet_ _Macbeth_ _Hamlet_ I’m surprised they didn’t dio more **Frank Buck** A big-game hunter, famous in the 1930s and 1940s. Literature it ain’t, but I could see why they couldn’t resist telling his jungle stories _Bring 'em Back Alive_ _Fang and Claw_ _On Jungle TRails_ **Nordhoff and Hall** They did the entire _Bounty_ trilogy, by gum. I’m sure they were influenced by the release of the two movie versions _Mutiny on the Bounty_ _Pitcairn’s Island_ _Men Against the Sea_ _ **Talbot Mundy** _ Again, this is an adventure novel, not a classic. I’m convinced they brought it out because a movie version was coming out _King – of the Khyber Rifles_ **Robert Louis Stevenson** You can’t ignore Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. Although I notice that the first edition deviates from Stevenson’s story. _Doctor Jeckyll and Mister Hyde_ _Treasure Island_ _Kidnapped_ _The Bottle Imp_ _The Black Arrow_ **James Fenimore Cooper** It’s as if they wanted to be sure they got all the Natty Bumppo tales in comic book form _The Pioneers_ _The Last of the Mohicans_ _The Prairie_ _The Pathfinder_ _The Deerslayer_ _The Spy_ _The Red Rover_ _The Pilot_ **Charles Dickens** DEFINITELY classics. This was my introduction to Great Expectations, one of the CI titles that disappeared early on. _A Tale of Two Cities_ _David Copperfield_ _Great Expectations_ _A Christmas Carol_ _Oliver Twist_ **Alexandre Dumas** Swashbuckling action and classic lit – the perfect CI formula. Except it didn’t hook me _The Three Musketeers_ _The Count of Monte Christo_ _Twenty Years After_ _The Man in the Iron Mask_ _The Black Tulip_ _The 45 Guardsmen_ and plenty of others. What’s interesting to me are the classics that were NOT adapted: _The Epic of Gilgamesh_ _Beowulf_ _The Song of Roland_ _Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight_ _El Cid_ _The Argonautica (The Journey of the Argo)_ _The Aeneid_ I could understand shying away from the adult content in _The Canterbury Tales_ or _The Decameron_, but there were other stories they could tell. Heck, they did an adaptation of _The Arabian Nights_, although that became one of the harder issues to find later on – it wasn’t even listed on the back cover. Also too bad – there were a LOT of Arabian Nighs stories they could have done. CI tended to stay away from religion, but they put out a Special Edition on _The Ten Commandments_ that, suspiciously, came out about the same time as Cecil B. deMille’s movie. They also came out with a special edition of _The Story of Jesus_. So they could’ve done adaptations of various stories from the Bible. I doubt if they’d have been interested, but they could’ve done the _Mahabharata_ ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/2 "2026-07-01T14:09:38Z")
I read a ton of these when I was a kid. You could buy used ones for half the cover price at used book stores in the 1970s. And, yes. English teachers fell for it every time I took that shortcut. One thing I will note is that CI made very little attempt to appeal to young female readers. Even the adaptations of female writers (_Frankenstein_, _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_) weren’t selected to appeal to that audience. _Classics Illustrated_ was the worst offender in that regard in a field (comic books) with an extremely low bar to start with. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/3 "2026-07-01T14:58:23Z")
There’s been a more modern “reboot”, GRAPHIC CLASSICS, with shorter versions of stories, grouped by author or subject. An artist/editor gets his favorite artists, many from the world of underground comix, to illustrate. Some, like Rick Geary, make the classics come alive. The most popular volumes have been Poe, Lovecraft, Sci-Fi Classics, and African-American Classics. Worth checking out. > **[Graphic Classics Book Series](https://www.thriftbooks.com/series/graphic-classics/52271/?srsltid=AfmBOoqID0QaIaEaUkVA9iilmIV9JNltRLnuJrwstxEbTr0fxScMIWzX)** > > Find the complete Graphic Classics book series listed in order. Great deals on one book or all books in the series. Free US shipping on orders over $20. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/4 "2026-07-01T15:01:22Z")
Found an [old interview](https://www.wisconsinacademy.org/magazine/5q-tom-pomplun) with the editor. [![](https://www.wisconsinacademy.org/sites/wisconsinacademy.org/files/styles/spotlight_880x495/public/Pomplun.jpg?itok=D7imNclP) ](https://www.wisconsinacademy.org/sites/wisconsinacademy.org/files/styles/spotlight_880x495/public/Pomplun.jpg?itok=D7imNclP) ---
**Author:** ![De\_La\_Rue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@De\_La\_Rue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/De_La_Rue)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/5 "2026-07-01T22:43:34Z")
I have a stack of _Classics Illustrated_ in basement storage (from my father’s work buddy). I should read, sell, or otherwise do _something_ with them one of these days. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2026, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/6 "2026-07-01T23:47:01Z")
> [@De\_La\_Rue](#): > > sell, or otherwise do _something_ with them one of these days. What if a book report is required to get into a good retirement home? ---
**Author:** ![De\_La\_Rue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@De\_La\_Rue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/De_La_Rue)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2026, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/7 "2026-07-02T00:12:53Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > What if a book report is required to get into a good retirement home? I inherited these: > **[A student's guide to 50 British novels by Abraham H. Lass | Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL8161549W/A_student's_guide_to_50_British_novels)** > > A student's guide to 50 British novels by Abraham H. Lass, unknown edition, > **[A student's guide to 50 American novels by Abraham Harold Lass | Open Library](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL5272367W/A_student's_guide_to_50_American_novels)** > > A student's guide to 50 American novels by Abraham Harold Lass, unknown edition, ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2026, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/8 "2026-07-02T03:35:18Z")
When I was a kid (circa 1980), we had a couple of old Classics Illustrated comics from the early '60s. I believe they were “The Cossack Chief” (Taras Bulba, by Nikolai Gogol) and “The Black Arrow” (mentioned in the OP). I thought they were pretty lame at the time, but I’d probably appreciate them more nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2026, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/9 "2026-07-02T04:58:49Z")
The Tripod machines in the CI _War of the Worlds_ beat anything I’ve seen anywhere else. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2026, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/10 "2026-07-02T05:13:45Z")
Beat me to it. Yes, reading through the thread, I was reminded of two of my CI favourites: _The War of the Worlds_ and _The Time Machine_. Both by H.G. Wells. And those tripods were something else. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2026, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/11 "2026-07-02T19:54:06Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > When I was a kid (circa 1980), we had a couple of old Classics Illustrated comics from the early '60s. I believe they were “The Cossack Chief” (Taras Bulba, by Nikolai Gogol) I was just going to mention this one. I went with my dad to see the movie with Yul Brynner and Tony Curtis at Christmas 1962. When I read the CI version of the novel much later, I was surprised to see it ended very differently from the film. > **Summary** > > The eponymous character is burned at the stake after executing his traitorous son and being captured by the Poles. I also learned that a certain contemporary slur originally meant nothing other than bundles of firewood. (Wait, they’re piling _what_ under him?!? 😮 ) I’m slightly embarrassed by never having read the novel, even though I have an MA in Russian. I have however, thoroughly enjoyed other stories by Gogol, who seems to have had a few screws loose. I particularly liked _ **The Inspector General** _ (the Soviet version of that work’s film is much better than Danny Kaye’s) and _ **The Nose** _, about which I wrote when I was in grad school. > **Summary** > > I think the protagonist wakes up one morning to find his penis is gone, not his nose. > **** > ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2026, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/12 "2026-07-02T20:04:52Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > Yes, reading through the thread, I was reminded of two of my CI favourites: _The War of the Worlds_ and _The Time Machine_. Both by H.G. Wells. And those tripods were something else. Agreed. I remember having both of those with me when I was six or seven and sharing a hotel room with my dad. They freaked me out so much that I couldn’t get to sleep and spent all night in bed with the lights turned on. Whenever I draw a Martian fighting machine (which I do on occasion), it always looks like the ones in the CI comic. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2026, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/13 "2026-07-05T02:37:21Z")
and wasn’t the word “fag” originally a British slang reference to a cigarette? ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2026, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/14 "2026-07-05T03:17:21Z")
I had five or six of the ones listed in the OP, plus a few others including _The Moonstone_ and _Les Miserables_. In 2012 my daughter read _Les Mis_ – the complete don’t-drop-it-on-your-toes novel (twice, I think). Someone was doing small-format reprints of CI, and I managed to find a copy of _Les Mis_ to give her. > [@Spoons](#): > > And those tripods were something else. The picture I remember best was the one of HMS _Thunderchild_ coming up to attack the tripods. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2026, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/15 "2026-07-05T13:36:37Z")
It is now. It goes back to the word “faggot,” a piece of firewood. When I was teaching English as a foreign language in Russia, one of my British colleagues (a big, burly guy) said “I fancy a fag” before stepping out of the office for a cigarette. I knew what he meant, but there were others in the office who might not have. Back in 1976, I was shocked by a friend of mine from Newcastle saying “I think I’ll knock up Claire [his girlfriend] tonight.” I still hadn’t adjusted to British slang after five months in the UK. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2026, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/16 "2026-07-05T13:41:02Z")
And I remember the full-page illustration of it being blown to smithereens! 😯 Are you sure it was the _Thunderchild_, and not the _Thunderchief_? I haven’t read the book in years. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2026, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/17 "2026-07-05T13:41:20Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I still hadn’t adjusted to British slang after five months in the UK. 😃 We were taught that one in a lecture the first week I was in Scotland. Don’t think I ever heard anyone say it during the rest of the three years I was there. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2026, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/18 "2026-07-05T13:43:01Z")
I also had to learn that a “rubber” is actually an eraser. 😏 ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2026, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/19 "2026-07-05T14:48:42Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > And I remember the full-page illustration of it being blown to smithereens! 😯 > Are you sure it was the _Thunderchild_, and not the _Thunderchief_? HMS Thunder Child. I’m not sure if it was identified by name in the CI adaptation; just called a “torpedo-ram”, which was a real thing back in the day. > **[Torpedo ram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_ram?wprov=sfti1)** > > A torpedo ram is a type of torpedo boat combining a ram with torpedo tubes. Incorporating design elements from the cruiser and the monitor, it was intended to provide small and inexpensive weapon systems for coastal defence and other littoral combat. Like a monitor, torpedo rams operated with very little freeboard, sometimes with only inches of hull rising above the water, exposing only their funnels and turrets to enemy fire. In addition to the guns in their turrets, they also were equipped with... Smithereens, indeed: [![](https://ccsbooks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/9781906814014-4-scaled.jpg) ](https://ccsbooks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/9781906814014-4-scaled.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2026, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331/20 "2026-07-05T15:02:57Z")
I looooove the artwork in this book! 🥰 One of the best comics ever. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-praise-of-classics-illustrated/1031331.md?page=2)