Arabian Nights comics are comic book stories adapted and inspired by the One Thousand and One Nights. The collection of Middle Eastern folk tales has inspired filmmakers (The Thief of Baghdad, all the various versions of Sindbad, Aladdin, etc.), playwrights (Edward Knoblock's Kismet, James Elroy Flecker's Hassan) and popular novelists (John Barth, A. S. Byatt – even Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz), and comics versions proliferate as well. Generally, the comic adaptations are meant to bring classic literature and mythology to a younger audience.