Dante's Divine Comedy

By Seymour Chwast

From the nine circles of Hell all the way to Paradise, a graphic adaptation of the classic poem The Divine Comedy as only Seymour Chwast could imagine it.

The "left-handed designer," Seymour Chwast has been putting his unparalleled take-and influence-on the world of illustration and design for the last half century. In his version of Dante's Divine Comedy, Chwast's first graphic novel, Dante and his guide Virgil don fedoras and wander through noir-ish realms of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, finding both the wicked and the wondrous on their way.

Dante Alighieri wrote his epic poem The Divine Comedy from 1308 to 1321 while in exile from his native Florence. In the work's three parts (Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise), Dante chronicles his travels throughthe afterlife, cataloging a multitude of sinners and saints-many of them real people to whom Dante tellingly assigned either horrible punishment or indescribable pleasure-and eventually meeting both God and Lucifer face-to-face.

In his adaptation of this skewering satire, Chwast creates a visual fantasia that fascinates on every page: From the multifarious torments of the Inferno to the host of delights in Paradise, his inventive illustrations capture the delirious complexity of this classic of the Western canon.

Reviews for Dante's Divine Comedy:

“Creative, classy and often surreally funny, Chwast's Comedy is an unexpectedly fresh take on this much-revisited work.”—Shelf Awareness’s Best of the Year list for graphic novels.

Dante's Divine Comedy by Seymour Chwast is included in the 2010 LA Holiday Gift Guide.

"In his adaptation, Chwast has given us a fascinating companion piece...that successfully complements Dante's original.—Los Angeles Times. Read review.

New Yorker Book Bench, they picked Dante's Divine Comedy

“Chwast retells the poem in a vastly streamlined text, stripping down each canto to just a few lines, and his drawings, too, are done in plain black ink. But Chwast uses the ordinariness of both language and imagery to his advantage to bring out the quotidian side of the Inferno…[Chwast’s Divine Comedy] emphasizes Dante’s earthlier (and earthier) qualities.” —The New Republic

"Dante's Divine Comedy is the first comics work of Seymour Chwast, monumental graphic designer and illustrator of the second half of the 20th century. Seymour's design and illustration work has always borne the influence of his youth spent reading comics, and now he's putting his own spin on the medium.—Graphic Novel Reporter Read review.

“Despite his countless artistic accomplishments spanning over sixty years, notably over 30 plus children’s books, Seymour Chwast (b. 1931) never created a graphic novel…Until now, that is; proving that perseverance – and talent – pays off. [Dante’s Divine Comedy] is the hellarious adaptation of this fate-of-man and triumph-of-the-spirit epic illustrated in comic form, Canto by Canto…Dante’s hell is Chwast’s heaven." —Steven Heller, Varoom

“Chwast’s interpretation of Dante is indeed divine and comic, a playful retelling filled with humor and light horror…delightfully devilish.”—Society of Illustrators. Chwast, who is seventy-nine and known as the Left-Handed Designer, will be at the Society of Illustrators on September 24 for a lecture, book launch, and reception celebrating the release of this delightfully devilish hardcover. 138 East 63rd St. Friday, September 24, $10-$20, 6:30 www.societyillustrators.org www.pushpininc.com

“A fresh look at a 14th-century masterpiece… Dante’s layers of fantastic detail never stop and Chwast’s illustrations bring them to life… Dante’s Divine Comedy provides an excellent introduction not only to Dante, but also to Seymour Chwast.”—Pop Matters

“Dante’s hell is Chwast’s heaven. Imagery flows from him like blood from a freshly opened vein. Chwast's deceivingly child-like scrawls are packed with inherent wit…Chwast’s version is not your grandmother’s Divine Comedy…Chwast has succeeded in making this classic into something timely and just as vital today as it has ever been – and more engaging.” —The Daily Heller. Read article.

"A clever reimagining of a classic...the lamentations of the damned were never so much fun." -- Entertainment Weekly's "Must List"

“It is one of the elemental facts of civilization that there is nothing in “The Divine Comedy” that post-moderns or moderns (or, for that matter, Romantics or Classicists) would actually call “comedy.”…So that leaves Chwast to come up with his own comedy, while, in fact, still treating Dante’s text with as much fidelity as he can muster. But there’s no getting around that the very idea of Chwast, the illustrator, turning the whole of “The Divine Comedy” into a “graphic novel” is, in itself, well on its way to hilarity. And that’s before you even see Chwast’s splendid opening pie chart of the circles in Dante’s “Inferno” with “Cadiz” at one pole of the earthly diameter and “Ganges” at the other… But before Chwast is finished, his faithful condensation of the whole of “The Divine Comedy” into 121 pages has been so concise and, in its wackedout way, respectful that the whole thing is funny in a way one hopes even exiled Medieval Florentines might enjoy.” —Buffalo News

“The protagonists’ journey through Inferno, Purgatory and Heaven is transformed by Chwast into a feast of illustrative noir.” —Eye Magazine. Read blog

“Mighty nice graphic design.”—Comics Alliance. Read review

"Famed artist and graphic designer Chwast has turned his talents to the graphic novel form for the first time, and we can all be happy about it…With his signature mix of humor, artistry, and high-level design, he conveys a breathtaking amount of information in clear black and white line drawings…Chwast does a stunning job of telling Dante's story in his own brilliant style."—Publishers Weekly

“With all due respect to Dante, this is Chwast’s Divine Comedy…[Chwast] makes the Divine Comedy irresistibly comic and inspirationally transcendent.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"Although legendary graphic designer and illustrator Chwast is pushing 80, he is still seeking new fields to conquer. For his first graphic novel, he tackles no less daunting a task than adapting Dante's epic poem into comics format...An off-kilter, anachronistic approach-Dante is a pipe-smoking mug in a trench coat and shades, and Virgil sports a derby and cane-and, most of all, his distinctively simple, whimsically blunt drawing style and elegantly economical sense of design and composition, which makes each page its own visual treat."—Booklist

"Chwast's adaptation is infused with his original comic style."—Huffington Post. Read full review

Check out this terrific slide show and commentary by Seymour on Huffington Post

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Dante's Divine Comedy