The comic book hypertext: an analysis of illustrated sequential narrative adapted for the screen

This thesis analyzes the understudied practice of comic-to-screen adaptation in order to demonstrate how a process-centric interpretation of medium specificity (rendering this process not in opposition to hybridist frameworks) can offer insight into how, or if, filmmakers address the ontological disparities existing between the two media involved in their hypertexts. This thesis focuses on the recently flourishing practice of trans medial adaptation from contemporary comics and graphic novels to screen and investigates how the study of this particular type of adaptation can offer unique insights to the field of adaptation studies.

It examines the relationship existing between the comic book medium and cinema as they both convey story via the use of visual sequences. It thus examines the ontological attributes of the two and analyzes a number of existing comic-to-screen adaptations in order to assess how this practice has influenced contemporary American filmmaking in recent years. Furthermore, this thesis proposes a process-centric (rather than content-centric) re­ definition of the 'medium specificity theoretical framework as a viable one for the study of trans medial adaptations and one that does not conflict or challenge the intertextual discourses currently raised in adaptation studies.