Graphic Novel Review: Wicked: The Graphic Novel Part I, by Scott Hampton

reviewed by Julian Lawrence

Wicked: The Graphic Novel Part I. Gregory Maguire, adapted and illustrated by Scott Hampton. New York: William Morrow Paperbacks, 2025. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/wicked-the-graphic-novel-part-i-gregory-maguirescott-hampton

 The publication of Eisner-winning veteran Scott Hampton’s wonderfully illustrated adaptation transports the transmedial Wicked phenomenon into comics. The strength of this property lies in the range of themes that underlie its overarching tale of transformation. Elphaba’s character transformation in Wicked portrays her as going “from being a misunderstood outcast to being a friend, a love interest, and a social movement activist” (Schrader, 2011: 49). Furthermore, “Elphaba's peers initially ostracize her for her physical difference, but we soon see that her real difference is political” (Wolf, 2008: 9).

 Wicked has impacted a variety of mediums including literature, theatre, film, and now comics. I discovered Wicked when I attended a live performance of the show in the summer of 2024, over twenty years after the Tony Award-winning musical premiered, and almost 30 years since the novel’s publication in 1995. I have not read author Gregory Maguire’s novel, but now that I have read the graphic novel, I have added the book to my 2025 summer reading list.

 Themes relevant to LGBTQ+, race, and disability are clearly presented in the stage, film and comic book adaptations of Wicked, yet the theme of speciesism jumped out at me the first time I saw the musical performed. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes speciesism as “the view that only humans should be morally considered” (Gruen and Monsó, 2024). The group of human animals with whom I attended the performance understood the show’s themes of identity and transformation, but they all overlooked the significance of speciesism in Wicked. This appears to be the case for most audiences with whom I discuss the topic; people downplay or ignore the catalyst that leads to Elphaba’s transformation, namely her advocacy for animals. Like the musical, animal oppression is important to the film, and this theme is explored in more detail in Hampton’s adaptation. Thus, in this review of the graphic novel, I will address the importance of Elphaba’s transformation into a vegan advocate for the animals, which ultimately leads to her vilification by Oz society.

 Like Elphaba, I have been an advocate for the animals since January 2000 and over the decades I have noticed a palpable anti-vegan bias in society that has compelled “scholars and legal bodies to recognise anti-veganism as a prejudice, resulting in the protection of ‘ethical veganism’ under the UK Equality Act 2010. Some evidence, reported by The Times, even suggests that vegan-related hate crimes may be on the rise in the UK” (Gregson, Piazza, and Boyd, 2022: 2). As such, the broad lack of media and critical focus on the vegan theme in Wicked is not surprising to me. For instance, it has been suggested that “the Animals stand in for the racialized Other, with strong associations with Jewishness in the musical” (Wolf, 2008: 10). However, a vegan reading of Wicked (musical/film/comic) aligns with critiques of unsustainable and inhumane practices that slaughter billions of land animals annually in factory farms. It can be said that Wicked is commenting on our contemporary animal holocaust rather than the Holocaust.

 Through a vegan lens, Wicked does not focus on racism or sexual orientation, but speciesism. As a woman, Elphaba brings an additional feminist layer because “both sexism and speciesism are not only positively correlated but are also underpinned by group-dominance motives, consistent with ecofeminist theorizing highlighting the role of patriarchal values of domination underlying attitudes towards both women and animals” (Salmen and Dhont, 2023: 5). Elphaba is vilified and hunted down by Oz society not because of her skin colour or the romantic relationship she has with Glinda; rather, Elphaba is perceived as “wicked” by Ozians because she is a woman fighting the Wizard’s patriarchal oppression of animals. Visually, Hampton creatively demonstrates the connection between speciesism and sexism on two pages: the large panel on page 59 portrays a white cockatoo in a cage (fig.1), and on the last panel of the next page, the male Munchkin Boq gazes lustily at two women in their white undergarments through a window whose frames simulate the bars of a bird cage (fig. 2).

fig. 1

fig. 2

 The graphic novel adaptation includes the animal rights theme and utilizes it as the motivation that transforms Elphaba into the story’s Wicked heroine: she wants to be a voice for the increasingly silenced and voiceless animals. The wise goat, Dr. Dillamond, becomes her mentor as they work together to fight legislated animal oppression. On page 76, Elphaba says to Boq: “I admire the goat intensely. But the real interest of it to me is the political slant. How can the Wizard publish those bans on Animal mobility if Doctor Dillamond can prove, scientifically, that there isn't any inherent difference between humans and Animals?” (Maguire and Hampton, 2025: 90). As such, Elphaba “notes the unjust treatment of Animals, the questionable conduct of the Wizard, and the ways in which greater equality might be achieved” (Kruse and Prettyman, 2008). Most of us acknowledge equality as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion for humans. However, the theme of non-human animal equity lies at the foundation of Wicked’s narrative as Elphaba “flies on a broom at night in order to free captive Animals” (Schrader, 2011: 57). Fighting animal abuse is a noble cause, but the authorities in Oz vilify Elphaba for defying the Wizard’s legislated oppression of non-human animals.

fig. 3

 Hampton’s effective portrayal of the Wizard as a deformed, monstrous animal evokes the spirit of the late comic book horror artist Bernie Wrightson’s fearsome creatures of yore. In her meeting with the Wizard (fig. 3), Elphaba implores him to “reverse your recent judgements on the rights of animals…The hardship on the Animals is more than can be borne” (Maguire and Hampton, 2025: 126-127). Her pleading falls on deaf ears, and the meeting is fruitless; thus, Elphaba’s resistance and activism is born. Parallels between humans and non-human animals are affirmed later in the comic when Fiyero walks into the bedroom while Elphaba sleeps: “a smell of perfume still in the air, and the resiny, animal smell…” (143).

fig. 4

 The graphic novel is indeed beautifully illustrated, and Hampton is a master of quality comic art. His depiction of Dr Dillamond’s violent murder is respectfully illustrated, with the hint of a glazed-over goat eye peering out from underneath the shroud that covers his unfortunate corpse (fig 4). The caption above this sad illustration explains that “his throat was still knotted with congealed ropes of black blood, where it had been slit as thoroughly as if he had wandered into an abattoir” (90).

 I note, however, that despite the careful detail in the art, some of the text renders could be improved. For instance, captions are sometimes casually applied, unfortunately obscuring interesting portions of the art (fig. 5).

fig. 5

fig. 6

 In another couple of instances, speech bubble fonts randomly change (fig. 6). These are typographical and editorial issues that can be rectified in future printings; they do not impact the detailed watercolour art overall. It is, nonetheless, a very wordy comic, with lots of telling rather than showing. However, moments where Hampton shows, rather than tells, effectively and wordlessly capture tone and mood. Pages 146-47 present a particularly touching sequence that clarifies the impacts of the Wizard’s laws on the oppressed animals (fig. 7).

fig. 7

 The graphic novel opens with a Leo Tolstoy quote: “In historical events great men – so-called – are but the labels that serve to give a name to an event, and like labels, they have the last possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity.” In contextualizing that quote with Wicked: The Graphic Novel, it can be said that greatness is achieved when individuals permit the moral progress of history to guide their actions. Elphaba’s advocacy for the animals presents a critical and ethical step forward for civilization, and that is Wicked’s underlying message.

 Tolstoy was a strict vegetarian, which inspired him to ask: “Who will deny that it is repugnant and harrowing to a man's feelings to torture or kill, not only a man, but also even a dog, a hen, or a calf? I have known men, living by agricultural labor, who have ceased entirely to eat meat only because they had to kill their own cattle” (Tolstoy, 1886: 16). Consider that quote before you bite into another’s flesh while eating a sandwich or a burger, because Dr Dillamond’s hypothesis is correct: there are no relevant scientific, biological, or theoretical differences between humans and non-human animals. We all want to defy gravity, including Elphaba flying on her broom, lambs gamboling in the fields, dogs running in a park, and caped children leaping from swings.

 References

Gregson, Rebecca, Jared Piazza and Ryan Boyd. 2022. ‘“Against the cult of veganism”: Unpacking the social psychology and ideology of anti-vegans’, Appetite, 178, pp. 106143–106143. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2022.106143.

 Gruen, Lori and Susana Monsó, "The Moral Status of Animals." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Fall 2024 Edition. Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.). Available at <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2024/entries/moral-animal/>. Accessed February 22, 2025.

 Kruse, Sharon and Sandra Spickard Prettyman. 2008. “Women, leadership, and power revisiting the Wicked Witch of the West.” Gender and education, 20(5), pp. 451–464. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09540250701805797. Accessed February 22, 2025.

 Salmen, Alina and Kristof Dhont. 2023. “Animalizing women and feminizing (vegan) men: The psychological intersections of sexism, speciesism, meat, and masculinity.” Social and personality psychology compass, 17(2). Available at https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12717. Accessed February 22, 2025.

 Schrader, Valerie Lynn. (2011) “Witch or Reformer?: Character Transformations Through the Use of Humor in the Musical Wicked.” Studies in American humor, 23(23), pp. 49–65. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/42573612. Accessed February 22, 2025.

 Tolstoy, Leo. 1886. What I Believe. New York: William S. Gottsberger.

 Wolf, Stacy. (2008) “‘Defying Gravity’: Queer Conventions in the Musical “Wicked.’” Theatre journal (Washington, D.C.), 60(1), pp. 1–21. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2008.0075. Accessed February 22, 2025.

 

Julian Lawrence is a senior lecturer in comics and graphic novels at Teesside University, specializing in storytelling, graphic memoir, and comics pedagogy. As a cartoonist, researcher, and teacher, his work bridges creative practice and academic research, exploring comics as a medium for education, reflection, and social change. http://www.julianlawrence.net/

A version of this review will appear in print in IJOCA 27:1