FROM CLASSIC TO RACY COMIC

MOSCOW--The story of the most romantic fallen woman in literature has
undergone a modern make-over in Russia's first comic-book treatment of
a classic novel.

Convertible cars, cocaine and sushi bars provide the backdrop for the
reworking of Anna Karenina, set in the present day and casting its
characters as members of Russia's idle rich.

The novel's heroine is depicted as a femme fatale with a mobile phone,
a taste for luxury lingerie and, by the end of the comic, a drug habit
that drives her to suicide.

Bart Simpson, Bruce Willis and the film "Pulp Fiction" all make
fleeting appearances in the book, further distancing the cartoon
version from its origins in Count Leo Tolstoy's novel set in 19th
century czarist Russia.

"You couldn't ask for anything more contemporary," said Grigory
Baltser, the publisher. "It has a classic love triangle, and a wealthy
woman who becomes a drug addict.

"It is not a profanation of the original work. This is not
blasphemy."

The comic may be an abridged version of Tolstoy's 900-plus pages, but
the speech bubbles nearly all contain quotations from the book. And
its "authors" did not have to change much to bring the novel up to
date.

Tolstoy himself put his most celebrated character on morphine and sent
her lover, Count Vronsky, to the Balkans after her death to fight
alongside Serbs.

Turning one of the world's greatest novels into a comic, especially in
a country so proud of its literary heritage, was bound to be
controversial.

"This is an outrage," said Stanislav Govorukhin, a film director and
Duma deputy. "Is nothing sacrosanct nowadays? Tolstoy and Chekhov, for
example, must remain holy."