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“I think that it’s an important part of our literary landscape and I love the normalization of graphic novels as reading. But it’s an organic push to meet people where they are and to understand that different forms of media helps us retain information. We’re all different,” says Nikki High, owner of Octavia’s Bookshelf.

“It feels more like a holographic projection. We’re dealing with the technology of it a little bit more. I’m trying to pull that in. So basically what we did is we took cues from our other collaborator — who was Octavia E. Butler. We’re just trying to take cues from what she’s describing to actually create the feel of the book based off of what we think she would have maybe approved.”

Influential writer Octavia Butler’s literary legend may spread to a new type of fanbase with the introduction of a graphic novel adaptation of “Parable of the Talents,” originally published as a novel in 1998 and winner of the 2000 Nebula Award for best novel.

Unveiled last Friday night at Octavia’s Bookshelf bookstore in Pasadena, with illustrator John Jennings in attendance for a Q&A, the adaptation will be released wide on Tuesday by Abrams ComicsArts.

Chu writes about culture, all of it, from Octavia Butler’s sci-fi to the essays of Maggie Nelson to musicals such as “The Phantom of the Opera” and on to television, video games, film and, oh yes, notions of gender.