Walter Scott's Scottish Tales Scriptbook

Daniel Cook, Chris Murray, Norrie Millar (Artist), Ell Balson (Artist), Julie Campbell (Artist), Dan McDaid (Artist), Phillip Vaughan

Research output: Book/ReportBook

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Abstract

Sir Walter Scott was Europe’s bestselling poet before the young upstart Lord Byron took his crown. Then he started a second career in literature, as a pioneer in historical fiction – a genre that still dominates the book charts. Modern readers often baulk at the size of his novels – but Scott also mastered the shorter form. He even produced a collection of shorter fiction, Chronicles of the Canongate (1827), from which we take ‘The Two Drovers’ and ‘The Highland Widow’. A spiky story in which the simmering rivalry between a Highlander and a Yorkshireman leads to murder, ‘The Two Drovers’ offers a slow-burn exposé of national conflict. ‘The Highland Widow’ deals with the fallout of the Jacobite risings in Scotland. Growing up fatherless, Hamish Bean makes the fatal decision to enlist in the British army. Aghast, his proud mother drugs him so he misses his rendezvous. As a deserter, the boy’s punishment is death. Despondent but unrepentant, the childless widow withers away in the land she loves – is she a restless ghost or a sad legend? ‘Wandering Willie’s Tale’ comes from Redgauntlet (1824), one of the world’s most popular historical novels set in Scotland. A Gothic storyteller by trade, Willie weaves a tale around the grisly death of a despotic laird, Sir Robert, and the mystery of missing money. A hellish underworld, a biased narrator and a demonic monkey!

We wrote comics adaptations 0f these stories as a meeting point between two research projects. The first investigated Scott’s shorter fiction, and the second the relationship between literature and comics. This book is a companion piece to the resulting comics anthology, Walter Scott’s Scottish Tales (2021) and contains the scripts along with process work (layouts, sketches and inks) by the artists. We hope you enjoy this glimpse behind the scenes of making the comic!
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationDundee
PublisherUniVerse
Number of pages64
Publication statusPublished - 2024

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  • Walter Scott's Scottish Tales

    Cook, D., Murray, C. (Lead / Corresponding author), Vaughan, P. (Artist), McDaid, D. (Artist), Millar, N. (Artist), Balson, E. (Artist), Campbell, J. (Artist) & Robinson, H. (Artist), 2021, Dundee: UniVerse. 40 p.

    Research output: Book/ReportBook

    Open Access
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