Ever since Three-Body Problem hit stores back in 2008, Cixin Liu has become one of the biggest names in science fiction, with his stories getting adapted for big-budget films and TV shows. Now, his stories are being adapted for a new medium: comics.
SciFiNow has a preview of three new graphic novels that will be published by Head of Zeus: The Wandering Earth, Yuanyuan’s Bubbles, and Sea of Dreams, all of which are now available.
Those three books are just the first of a bigger initiative: Head of Zeus has brought together an international team of writers and artists to adapt fifteen of Liu’s stories for the format. The first batch of comics came out earlier this year in the UK. Here in the US, Talos Press released its first installment, Sea of Dreams back in June: The Wandering Earth, The Village Teacher, and Yuanyuan’s Bubbles are set to be released throughout September.
Here’s the rundown on each title:
Sea of Dreams is about an alien artist who comes to Earth to create art from frozen water in the ocean and ice caps. But Earth is experiencing global warming, and this new visitor will only speak with one artist whose work originally drew its attention. This book is adapted by Rodolfo Santullo and illustrated by JOK.
The Wandering Earth is set in a future where our Sun is dying, and scientists hatch a desperate plan: move Earth to Proxima Centauri. Adapted by Christophe Bec, illustrated by Stefano Raffaele, and translated by S. Qiouyi Lu.
The Village Teacher is about a man who dedicated his life to math and science in a remote village in the mountains, and before he dies, begins to teach his neighbors’s children all that he knows. Meanwhile, an interstellar war brews in the depths of space, and the eventual victors want to eliminate all low-intelligence from the galaxy, making those children’s lessons incredibly important for the survival of Earth. Art by Zhang Xiaoyu.
Yuanyuan’s Bubbles follows a girl named Yuanyuan who was obsessed with bubbles as a girl, and vowed to herself that she’d blow the biggest ones possible. Her family disapproves, but as their city is dying, she discovers that she can blow ones that are as big—or bigger—than their home, showing that her obsession might not be as frivolous as they thought. Adapted by Valérie Manguin and illustrated by Steven Dupré.
There’s no word on what titles are yet to come in the series, but according to SciFiNow, the series will include fifteen of Liu’s stories in all. If you’re looking to get a jump start on any of those stories, a couple (“The Village Teacher” and “Sea of Dreams”) have been included in Liu’s recent collection, To Hold up the Sky, while The Wandering Earth headlines his next collection, which is due out in October.
This isn’t the first time that Liu’s works have been brought to comics. In 2019, Chinese media company Tencent began adapting The Three-Body Problem as an ongoing comic, some of which you can read on WeComics.
