Roald Dahl’s chocolate empire is getting a comics passport. Viking Books for Young Readers will publish a graphic novel adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by writer Insha Fitzpatrick and artist Kitt Thomas on April 6, 2027, Comics Beat reports from a Publishers Weekly exclusive.
The 224-page book retells the story of Charlie Bucket, the kid who finds a Golden Ticket into reclusive candy maker Willy Wonka’s factory. It will sell for $13.99 in paperback and $23.99 in hardcover. Cover and interior design are led by Viking art director Kristin Boyle with senior designer Danielle Ceccolini.
Fitzpatrick, whose credits include Who Sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott?: Rosa Parks, called the job “a rare treat” and said she wants readers to experience the factory tour through Charlie’s eyes. Thomas, the artist of Stacey’s Extraordinary Words, said Dahl’s whimsy and heartening message still hold for young and old readers alike.
The cover art shows Charlie as Black, which Comics Beat notes lines up with what biographer Donald Sturrock has described as Dahl’s original intention before an agent talked him out of it. Fitzpatrick and Thomas are both Black creators, and the adaptation arrives ahead of a separate animated Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory film due in theaters and on Netflix in late 2027.
It will be the second major graphic novel drawn from a Dahl book after Pénélope Bagieu’s The Witches from Scholastic in 2020, a year before Netflix bought the Roald Dahl Story Company.
Prose-to-comics adaptations keep stacking up on the bookstore tables, including Abrams ComicArts’ Dune Messiah graphic novel arriving Nov. 3. Charlie’s Golden Ticket now has a comics street date of April 6, 2027. Between the new animated film the following November and this Viking edition, Dahl’s factory is getting another full lap through kids’ media — this time with a creative team that is putting Charlie’s perspective, and his face, at the center of the retelling.
