When it was first published, the story was hailed as one of the great Victorian mystery tales and its plot went on to became the stock-in-trade of Hammer horror movies. Now the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, is to be transformed into a comic book by two of the world’s greatest exponents of graphic art.

The artist Cam Kennedy and scriptwriter Alan Grant are to collaborate in a 48-page illustrated version of the novel, which will be published in February 2008, exactly a year after their graphic interpretation of Stevenson’s Kidnapped appeared on bookshelves.

“Stevenson’s work fits comic books beautifully, because he was such a great storyteller and the stories translate so easily to the page. The difficulty is slicing 95 per cent of the text out of the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and leaving enough to be authentic and coherent. I felt guilty chipping away at his words,” Grant, who is based in Moniavie in Dumfriesshire, said.

The two men have collaborated before, working for every leading comic book publisher in the United States, including the famous Marvel and DC imprints in New York. Grant worked initially on Batman, while Kennedy was tasked with relaunching the Star Wars films in comic book form.

Typically in comic book composition, writers and artists are involved in initiating and developing storylines. Adapting the classics presents a different kind of challenge, the two men told an audience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

The Kidnapped project – part of the Unesco City of Literature initiative in Edinburgh – encouraged both men to look again at great works of Scottish and English fiction. They found that Stevenson’s novels were particularly suitable for the form.

“Stevenson had an incredible grasp of the English language and of Scots and is brilliant at story telling. Stripping it down, but keeping the atmosphere of the book is an enormous challenge,” Grant said. “The whole process took twice as long as it would if I was working on an original graphic novel of the same length.” He added that he was conscious that many readers would see the book as a horror story, but that had not been Stevenson’s intention.

“I deliberately eschewed the horror approach, and told the tale as Stevenson intended it. It effectively comes down to a huge editing job, but wherever possible, I have tried to use Stevenson’s own words.”

Kennedy, 62, has likewise found himself approaching the project with a degree of reverence which he has not felt for other work.

“In the past, when I’ve been working on a story, I’ve tended to plunge straight in. With Stevenson instinctively I give the stuff more respect. Jekyll and Hyde is a different kind of challenge from what I’m used to. Stevenson didn’t write a lot of action. A lot of things that are happening are all in the mind – you’ve got to show man’s inner beast at work.”

Both writer and artist said that they were keen to tackle a third Scottish classic, possibly by Stevenson, or another great adventure writer, John Buchan. “ The Thirty-Nine Steps is ideal comic book material. Once the action starts it never stops,” Grant said.

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