James Joyce's Ulysses Gets Graphic With Online Comic

The mere mention of James Joyce's pivotal work, Ulysses, can send shivers down the spine of any self-respecting graduate who barely managed to scrape through the Cliff Notes of one of modern literature's crown jewels. At 265,000 words, the tome tends to leave many slack-jawed in its intimidating wake. But the sequential artists at Throwaway Horse, LLC are seeking to change all that.

An online graphic novel version of the literary classic, Ulysses Seen, is the inaugural project of Throwaway Horse, a group seeking to spread awareness of literary classics and chip away at the air of intimidation that works like Ulysses tend to have. "The Throwaway Horse members love this book," they explain on the Ulysses Seen website, "and it kills us that it has gotten the reputation for being inaccessible to everyone besides the English professors who make their careers teaching the book to future English professors who will make their careers doing the same."

But fear not, English professors. The folks at Throwaway maintain that their version, while certainly more colorful, is not meant to replace the classic. Rather, Ulysses Seen is to act as an accompaniment to Joyce's original, with more interactivity (and pictures!). For example, the online version allows readers to mouse over any non-English passages (of which there are several in the original) to read a pop-up translation. There is also a corresponding Reader's Guide, which correlates with each online chapter and attempts to explain the mysteries and puzzles of Joyce's writing.

Although Ulysses is comprised of 18 exhaustive episodes, Throwaway Horse have only completed the first, Telemachus. It might take a lifetime to hand-pen graphic renderings of the entire book, but that doesn't seem to bother them. In fact, it fits right in with the Joycian theme. "The work here, as Joyce did with the original novel, will be presented in an on-going serialized form," according to the website. So if you're hungry for more graphic Joyce, you can sign up for e-mail updates. Just don't expect to absorb all of the literary subtleties of Joyce simply by staring at the pretty pictures.