Review by Frank Plowright
When The Red Badge of Courage was published in 1895 it reached an audience still able to recall the American Civil War, many of whom fought in it, yet the naturalistic tone was created by an author who wasn’t born when the war ended in 1865. Previously adapted for comics in contracted form as part of the Classics Illustrated series, French creator Steve Cuzor’s interpretation is the first full length graphic novel.
Although the Civil War remains a dividing line among Americans well over a century later, Stephen Crane wasn’t interested in exploring the roots of the conflict, but the human cost. His protagonist Henry Fleming is a Unionist who enlisted more from a lemming-like instinct following others in his village rather than any great patriotic instinct.
Part of Crane’s attempt to convey realism was highlighting the monotony of a soldier’s life as well as how they felt in battle, and the story opens in a camp at night with rumours rampant that the troops will finally see action. Cuzor draws everything in immense detail, so we’re shown the tents, the uniforms and every piece of bracken in the forest, amid people with great personality to their features. It’s all delivered with a pale green wash if during daylight and a more distinctive dark turquoise at night. The single whimsical exception is a US flag picked out in colour, but in the distance. Realism is the order of the day, except for a memorable panel in which Henry imagines the advancing Confederate troops as marauding Vikings.
There’s considerable discussion about how individual soldiers will cope with their first battle, whether or not they’ll have the commitment to fight rather than run, and the core of the book is that Henry doesn’t. At least not in the first instance. The title comes from his shame at his cowardice, and wishing for a wound that would instead show the opposite. Remove the trappings of the era and Crane’s novel remains contemporary, expressing and exploring the feelings of men about to go into battle, in the midst of the confusion and in the aftermath, and Cuzor brings this out with scenes of Henry considering his purpose and self-worth.
As good as Cuzor is, there is one intrusive caveat. Either Cuzor or his translator Montana Kane has taken a divisive path for readers familiar with the story by using modern idioms such as “Holy crap” in preference to the now archaic terms found in the novel. It’s a strange decision, possibly an attempt at injecting greater realism for 21st century readers, often when not required, yet the use just leaps out as anomalous. It’s irritating, but not enough to derail an emotionally charged and superbly drawn adaptation that otherwise succeeds in transferring the essence of Crane’s novel on almost every count.
