Rekindling Classics as Comics: Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation - Illustrated by Tim Hamilton

I love to flip through familiar paperbacks in B&N to catch my favorite scenes, like a distracted middle-schooler's Post-It flip book. So imagine my delight on Saturday when my eye caught an illustrated version of Fahrenheit 451 validated by the prolific Bradbury himself! 

Tim Hamilton, the artist, is no Alan Moore, but his angular style does capture Guy Montag's ruggedness and the book-less world's insipid and stifling landscape. Considering how terrible movie adaptations have been, I was actually pretty impressed by how well the comic book's fast visual pace fit Bradbury's effortless dialogue.

Especially with beautifully written books like Fahrenheit 451, where I actually feel flames licking at the corners of the pages and Clarisse rubbing a soggy dandelion under my chin to see whether or not I'm in love; smell Guy doused in cursed kerosene; hear a Seashell tickling my ear (Bradbury's technologic prescience always amazes me); and see Clarisse's thin, white silhouette in an oppressive, starless city—I often think that no one could direct these moments better than my own mind.

But reading this comic book actually helped me grasp key parts of the book that slipped my memory or flew over my head when I was younger. And all in less than half an hour. 

For instance, Clarisse's oddball scenes and quirky dialogue has always stuck with me, as it does with Guy. Meanwhile, I never clearly understood Mildred's depressive suicidal attempt and her swift, but gruesome medical surgery, because Mildred herself does not recall it and waves it away, replacing it with empty wall-talk. 

(Random connection: Mildred's vapid concentration on her brainwashing shows while chugging pills reminds me of the crazy guy Mink from Don DeLillo's White Noise).

Also, I loved Captain Beatty's quote parrying scenes, his maniac obsession and love/hate relationship with books really jumped out at me between panels. I have always wondered if Beatty is aware of the power that literature has, but wants to keep that power to himself or is afraid of allowing it to spread to the masses.

In any case, if you happen to be looking for a quick refresher on Bradbury's classic or are trying to get your book-averse cousin to read something more substantial than the tiles in "Candy Crush," I recommend browsing through this adaptation. I do love the irony that a book about how instantly gratifying media might threaten the traditional form is being faithfully retold to reach a new generation of readers on the brink of Bradbury's greatest fear...

"We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy. Something is missing...
It is not books you need, it's some of the things that are in books. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us." — Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451