Hans Christian Andersen and the Comic Art Community : The Strange Case of the Little Mermaid's New Clothes

This chapter looks at the graphic novel Reflets d’écume (Ange and Varanda 1994, 1995), a revisionist treatment of “The Little Mermaid” (“Den lille Havfrue”, 1837) heavily relocating Hans Christian Andersen’s iconic little mermaid. Arguing that the fairy tale is redone in a gothic mode, the analysis does not wish to achieve a comparative reading of fairy tale vs. graphic novel but rather aims to consider the latter as an interpretation of a classic, and on its own terms. Not only does the reframing call for a study of the graphic novel in relation to the Gothic, but also for a look at how the medium affordances of comics serve this particular reading. Considering adaptation as a form of translation, the methodology used draws on Roman Jakobson’s (1987) notion of the ‘dominant’ and its employment in the field of translation studies, then combines with Julia Round’s (2014) exploration of the connections between comics and Gothic, and lastly with Thierry Groensteen’s (1999) semiotic approach to graphic narratives.