Daniel Lander's Awesome Blog: Rip Van Winkle

"To be a Rip van Winkle, is to awake suddenly to profound changes in one's surroundings. This may be due to physical absence or to absence of mind." from Wikipedia.

The idea of escaping and seeking freedom is not the part of the Rip Van Winkle story most focus on. Instead the focus is on the shock of awaking in a new era and being totally lost and alone, a relic of the past.

In researching this link I've found a Twilight Zone episode fallowing the idea called "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" (link at the bottom) which does justice to the story. What the Twilight Zone episode does well is that it takes the idea of needing to escape and flee and adds in a gold heist and technology. Being more about character interaction and about the human condition, along with being a TV show, the episode does not go into the deeper questions that the story raises.
Also I found a claymation version of the story, however, this version is very different from the story even though it uses most of the characters. I do not have the words to describe all the things wrong with the animated version except the one thing it does right: it looks good (also crazy).

The one thing that is missing in most in these retellings is the dog, since "Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf. (956)." So why leave out his only friend?
One more comic book for this post, then the video links.