@icarus generally we don't share anything that has not been officially done, especially something that could be used reprinted illegally.  (I have reported one or two items that have been found by our members, such as the illegal 1980s choose-your-own-adventure book/s)
So it's likely that we saw it back then, but didn't put it on this site. It's very fan fictiony art, with a girl (presumably from the family of recipients) joining the various adventures, including some imitations of artwork planned for the movies.

There is at least one officially sanctioned comic book version of LWW, issued around the same time as that movie.

(p.s. Did you scroll down and click on the Weta book picture? I smiled to see it had been printed in 1759!)

@icarus 

A Narnia comic book doesn’t seem like a bad idea, although I am not sure what Lewis would have thought of it. The pictures shown in the link seem to show some respect for the original story. I don’t see any reason to be snobbish toward comic books, which are much like children’s picture books. If the book was made privately and permission was granted by the C. S. Lewis estate I guess it is legitimate. It probably wasn’t read by many people if it was a family project.  I have to say that I think Pauline Baynes was the best artist to illustrate Narnia, although some other illustrators have done a decent job.

@narnian78 unfortunately people don't always ask the Estate for permission. 

Someone once posted a link to a similar set of pictures that were more like a student project or graduate portfolio piece. I don't think they had been approved officially 

Narniaweb was not given permission to draw some original illustrations, when we asked several years ago.  We did ask! 

There definitely is an authorised graphic novel version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — published in 1995 with illustrations by Robin Lawrie. I have a copy (not with me at the moment), which I bought out of curiosity, and I have to say it's really very well done. Not all the illustrations are quite to my taste, but most of them are very good, and the text is abridged but sticks closely to Lewis's wording as far as possible, so I'd say it captures the spirit of the original book really well. It's no longer in print, but I've found a couple of online reviews that show some of the illustrations, so you can get the idea:

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Graphic Novel

The Most Loved Book I Got for Christmas

@courtenay 

It looks more attractive than many comic books.  I like the informal style of printing, which is very appealing to children.  I guess you could say that the original books are always better, but this is something that would encourage children to read the originals.  And I think no other illustrator has equaled Pauline Baynes in her excellence for the artwork of Narnia.

@narnian78 Totally agree, especially about Pauline Baynes! There are a few tiny aspects of Narnia I'd say she didn't quite get right (like Lucy's hair colour ... and most of her depictions of Aslan are surprisingly ugly to my eyes), but that aside, there's a magic and a rightness to her illustrations that I don't think any other artist could equal.

I found out last night, while Googling Robin Lawrie's version of LWW, that she also illustrated a graphic novel version of The Magician's Nephew! But there are far fewer pictures of it online and the only review I could find was a very negative one (by someone who professes to "completely agree with author Philip Pullman" on the message behind the Narnia books, so that may have something to do with his/her judgment of this version). Here it is, for what it's worth: The Comics Get Serious

In contrast to that writer, I actually quite like that portrayal of a smirking Uncle Andrew, which is pretty much how I always imagine him! I might have to look out a copy of this book online too and see for myself what I think of the illustrations and the adaptation itself, rather than going by anyone else's opinion of it...

Posted by: @courtenay

@narnian78 Totally agree, especially about Pauline Baynes! There are a few tiny aspects of Narnia I'd say she didn't quite get right (like Lucy's hair colour ... and most of her depictions of Aslan are surprisingly ugly to my eyes)

And he was walking on two legs like a human in one picture.

@glenwit but Lewis approved that one. I still wonder why. Stage productions have found it helpful though.

Posted by: @glenwit

And he was walking on two legs like a human in one picture.

 

Posted by: @coracle

@glenwit but Lewis approved that one. I still wonder why. Stage productions have found it helpful though.

Ooer, too right... possibly my least favourite illustration in the entire series!! But yes, obviously Lewis didn't object. I have wondered occasionally if he himself hadn't fully thought out how Aslan should appear and behave when he wrote the first book. If you read LWW carefully, there are references to Aslan clapping his paws together, laying his paw on Peter's shoulder, taking Peter's sword (after it's cleaned! ) and striking him to make him a knight, rising up from "his throne" that he was apparently seated on (though it's not referred to anywhere earlier in the text) when he roars at the Witch, and then, after his resurrection when he romps with the two girls, "tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and catching them again". In other words, it does at times come across as if Lewis is implicitly thinking of Aslan as somewhat anthropomorphic, apparently able to stand upright and use his paws like human hands. All those actions would be pretty much impossible for a lion with 100% "natural" leonine anatomy!!

In the later books, though, I don't think we get anywhere near as many instances like this — the only other specific one I can think of is in Prince Caspian, when Aslan (teasingly) pounces on Trumpkin, picks the Dwarf up in his jaws, shakes him and throws him into the air, after which "the huge velvety paws caught him as gently as a mother's arms and set him (right way up, too) on the ground." That again sounds like Aslan is easily able to balance with his two forepaws off the ground and use them just about as well as a human's hands and arms, which no lion in our world could do. But I can't think of anywhere else that we see that happening, and I have a feeling Lewis might have deliberately moved away from portraying Aslan like that as the series went on. We'll probably never know for sure.

I do remember reading somewhere (perhaps even here on NarniaWeb) that Lewis objected to the idea of Aslan being portrayed, in film or TV versions, by a man in a lion suit — he may even have been thinking of the way the Cowardly Lion is portrayed in the classic 1939 film of The Wizard of Oz. The first-ever TV adaptation of Narnia DID have Aslan played in just that way, but it was made a few years after Lewis's death and so he wasn't around to complain! (I also cringed a fair bit at a stage version in London a few years ago that did the same thing.) But that in turn suggests that while Lewis may have thought of Aslan as having some human-like abilities with his paws, he definitely didn't picture Aslan as walking around on two legs, which makes that notorious Pauline Baynes picture even more of a mystery.

And as I've now dragged this way off the topic of comic book / graphic novel portrayals, I'll try to make up for it (somewhat) by including Robin Lawrie's illustration of Aslan throwing and catching the girls...

(unfortunately that's the only image I can find of it online... when I can get my own copy of the book out of my self-storage unit, I might snap a better photo of it)

... and Pauline Baynes' frontispiece for the first edition of LWW, in which, while she doesn't show Aslan actually throwing the girls, she does have him standing on his hind legs and apparently about to give them a high five!!  

(EDIT: And here's the pedant in me again... why, oh why has Baynes given Aslan two pads per toe on his raised paw like some kind of freak?! Lions have paw pads that look almost exactly like a domestic cat's, only of course a lot bigger (here's an example). All right, so Google Images wasn't available in 1950, but you'd think she could have visited a zoo or even just phoned them and asked... )

Posted by: @narnian78

I think no other illustrator has equaled Pauline Baynes in her excellence for the artwork of Narnia.

Posted by: @courtenay

There are a few tiny aspects of Narnia I'd say she didn't quite get right (like Lucy's hair colour ... and most of her depictions of Aslan are surprisingly ugly to my eyes), but that aside, there's a magic and a rightness to her illustrations that I don't think any other artist could equal.

I actually like the Chris Van Allsburg covers for the Narnia books better than the Pauline Baynes illustrations. Or at least I like the backgrounds better. The character designs by Baynes are probably better. 

It's funny you mention not really loving her Aslan, Courtenay, because I remember reading that the one thing C. S. Lewis really didn't like about her artwork was the lions she did. It was probably because she had to give them faces human personality. It might be harder to do that than with other animals.