Usually when we hear the word “adaptation” we think of our favourite books being turned into movies.

Many are apprehensive towards the idea of their images of texts being altered by film. But for Nicki Greenberg it’s not about recreating classic texts, rather re-envisioning them in the artistic form of graphic novels.

If inkblots, removable faces and flamboyant scene settings don’t make you think of Hamlet, or if a seahorse and a sepia wash photo album doesn’t make you think of The Great Gatsby, you should probably immerse yourself in the world of Nicki Greenberg’s graphic novel adaptations.

Nicki Greenberg is one of Melbourne’s quirkiest graphic novelists, children’s author and illustrator. Mainly known for her adaptations of the Great Gatsby and Hamlet, Nicki started her career at the ripe age of 15. Despite having sold over more than 380,000 copies in Australia and New Zealand of The Digits Series, she did not view writing and illustrating as a career, rather as a personal passion.

After studying law and arts, Nicki became a lawyer and in her spare time started constructing the graphic novel, The Great Gatsby. This was a labor of love, completed over a period of six years while working full time in her profession.

After completing The Great Gatsby, Nicki tackled Shakespeare’s longest play, Hamlet. In Hamlet, the use of inkblots as characters with removable faces on a stage, draws on the themes of plays within plays, with parallel stages and eight different backdrops. The question of what is reality and what isn’t on stage is still left for the audience to decide.

These adaptations were born out of her love for the texts and the inexhaustibility of the enigmatic narratives classic literature provides. Nicki describes her adaptations as a “tribute” to the texts she loves.

Tackling an adaptation is a time consuming and challenging process with Hamlet taking 3 years for Nicki to complete. Every detail is a thought out process, which is clearly shown in the layered collages of the backgrounds in Hamlet.

“The process of adaptation is a complicated one. One of the important things to consider is the narrative form you have chosen, and how the workings of that form differ from the original. ”

In the Great Gatsby, the book is set out like a photo album. The narrator is placing the photos in the album as the story is being told. Down to the finest details of the novel including the sepia washed tone of the illustrations, everything Nicki has drawn holds a purpose, allowing audiences to think about the meaning behind the text as well as imagery.

As well as her graphic novels, Nicki is continuously recognized in the literary world for her children’s books such as Teddy Took the Train, Monkey Red, Monkey Blue and The Naughtiest Reindeer.

The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), premiere funded, Putuparri and the Rainmakers, will see its World debut at MIFF 2015.

Against the backdrop of Australia’s tangled colonial and Indigenous history, this is an important film – poignant in its exploration of one man’s struggle to fulfil his destiny.

Tom “Putuparri” Lawford is caught between his past and present in modern society, where he battles with alcoholism and violence. “Putiparri” struggles with his position as future leader of his people, while reconnecting with his ancestral land and traditional culture and passing this knowledge on to the next generation.

Director Nicole Ma spent more than a decade documenting Putuparri’s journey, travelling with him and his family on numerous occasions to Kurtal, in the Great Sandy Desert – where his people ritually make rain – as they fight for their native title claim over the area.

Set within Australia’s colonial period, Putuparri and the Rainmakers, is an emotional and visually breathtaking story of love, hope and the survival of Aboriginal culture against all odds.