Title: Sense & Sensibility
Author: Jane Austen (Adapted: Nancy Butler & Sonny Liew)
Illustrator: Sonny Liew
Publisher: Marvel
Copyright: 2010
Price: $19.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4829-7
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Summary and Quick Thoughts: After the death of their father, the Dashwood daughters and their mother relocate to a small college. This is mainly due to their half-brother’s manipulating wife, but that’s ok as they will live happily there and marriage prospects look good. This is the story of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, their friendship and their romances. This is just an adaptation of the classic and collects the single issues published in fall 2010.
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Recommended Audience: Middle, high school, and adult
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Things to be aware of: None.
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Further Thoughts: Let me begin this by the fact that I was thoroughly expecting to snark my way through this book. Seriously. After the horrendous adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (click for my review), I expected to read this for the inconsistencies and the annoying, horrendous art.
Um. I was wrong. I was so crazy wrong. I’m so glad that this one is much, much better than the first which I still can’t believe actually made the New York Times Bestsellers (according to the back cover of this one).
Full disclosure: I have not read Sense & Sensibility, but have watched a few adaptations so I know the general story…sorta.
First, the art. I expected the art not to match the covers since that was obviously what happened with the first Austen adaptation. Nope. The art on the covers totally matched what was in the comic and I was thrilled. For me, half of the story is made up in the art from the nuances to the faces, the placing of characters, and how the scene is to be understood. One highlight of this work is that the characters are somewhat like caricatures, so when we slip into chibis (tiny bodies, large heads, in manga used to convey humor and cuteness) it was a natural shift and helped to add to the scene’s humor. I also never grew tired of the possibly screwed-up proportions. It just added to the story and the illustrator did a fantastic job conveying how the characters were feeling. My only complaint is how flushed everyone looked for most of the time. Occasionally I thought “who is going to be sick now?”
The text of the story is a bit wordy for a comic, but I’m not sure if there was any way to get around that. The narrated bits seemed out of place, but necessary. Having not read the text though, I cannot tell you where the liberties were taken for this story and what was original. I did feel that there were no essential parts left out this time like the major plot point missing in the Pride and Prejudice adaptation.
I’m impressed. I look forward to the next adaptation of Austen into comic style and hope that this success is only the beginning of more. Considering I’ve never read any other Austen (only got half-way through Emma), I’m hoping for an adaptation of Persuasion, as that movie adaptation only confused me. I’d also like to see how Mansfield Park could be improved upon as I tried to read that and couldn’t believe the stuff that character went to.
If you’re looking for more girl-centric stories and something that is mostly clean, this is a good selection. Well done Marvel. Not what I expected at all.
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Source: Library copy.
Showing posts with label Marvel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marvel. Show all posts
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Pride and Prejudice, adapated by Marvel
Title: Pride and Prejudice (Marvel Adapatation)
Author: Jane Austen (adapted by Nancy Butler & Hugo Petrus)
Illustrator: Hugo Petrus
Publisher: Marvel
Copyright: 2009
Price: $19.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3915-7
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Summary and Quick Thoughts: Marvel has adapted this perennial classic about two people who dislike each other on sight and develop their own ideas of the other. Elizabeth Bennet wants nothing to do with Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, but it seems friends, family, and fate has something else planned for them. They banter, they talk, but she really wants nothing to do with him. Instead, she wants to secure her sister’s happiness with Mr. Bingley and maybe find herself a proper fitted suitor. But what is Elizabeth to do when Mr. Darcy has found that he is in love with Elizabeth?
Frankly, I’m not going to go much into the plot of this one. Many know the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy from the constant adaptations and from discovering the book on their own. In an attempt to bring girls into the comic shops, Marvel has published a graphic novel with fantastic covers, poor artwork, and plot holes in the adaptation. Read on for more details.
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Will Teens Like It? I don’t know…
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Things to be aware of: …
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Further Thoughts: I wasn’t originally going to pick this up after previewing this on the Marvel site ages ago, but for some reason, I was lured in by the cover (again). The cover of Pride and Prejudice is a play on popular girl teen magazine covers with hints and tips from family to advice to “celebrities.” In the back of this graphic novel, like many other works of collected issues, are the covers of the individual issues. Personally, I would have bought them for the covers alone. The cover artwork is light, fitting to the story and more able to draw the female readers than the art inside the book. The last cover featured brings the infamous first line around Lizzy and Darcy and continues the light artwork and bring a fitting cover to the last issue.
Now, the artwork. This is not the greatest work of art, nor is it the worst, yet I have a serious problem with it. Maybe it is because I’m comparing it to Ruse (long lost CrossGen Victorian period/detective/fantasy book), but the art style really doesn’t fit the story. The art style is a semi-realistic, superhero, Marvel style you’d expect to see in Ultimate Spiderman or some modern day story. It’d work there. It doesn’t work here. More often than not, hair color is messed up (there is one page where Jane’s hair is black “for shading”, to black with blonde spots, to blonde as the panels progress). All the faces fall “flat,” where the eyes aren’t full of life and it is hard to tell what expression is really being conveyed. The Philosopher Musician says it best: “Are they smiling or crying? That is one creepy smile.” Eye contact is often missed to where I think you should be able to see that the character is looking the other in the eye instead of off above a head. In other areas, characters don’t resemble themselves throughout the story. For example, at one point, I was confused. Who was I looking at, Lizzy or another of the female characters? The only way I could tell was context (but I think this would be difficult for anyone who doesn’t know the story).
The text is actually not terrible. I think the writer took as much of the original text as she could and inserted it into the story, which was fantastic and worked wonderfully, but I started to find plot holes. Obviously, points are missing in adaptations, but I cannot believe that one glaring point was omitted and then commented on by characters later. The big error I found was when Lizzy made a comment about how a particular woman would make a fitting wife for a specific husband. I looked back to make sure I hadn’t missed the reference earlier, because if you haven’t read the book, you have NO idea which guy she’s talking about. It wasn’t there during Mr. Collins’s visit. A pity because then I looked at this book with an even more critical view.
Nancy Butler is a romance novelist and was lucky enough to adapt this work. Unfortunately, I find this work is not worthy of a library purchase unless you are a bigger library looking to add titles. It is a wonderful attempt to get girls into comic shops (as she says in the introduction), but it falls flat. If the artwork was “lighter” in style and more like one of the covers, or more in the style of Ruse this would be a fantastic adaptation. I think this will just “fall away” into the comic abyss of titles that were a good faith effort, but just didn’t have it.
------
Source: Library copy.
Author: Jane Austen (adapted by Nancy Butler & Hugo Petrus)
Illustrator: Hugo Petrus
Publisher: Marvel
Copyright: 2009
Price: $19.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3915-7
-----------
Summary and Quick Thoughts: Marvel has adapted this perennial classic about two people who dislike each other on sight and develop their own ideas of the other. Elizabeth Bennet wants nothing to do with Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, but it seems friends, family, and fate has something else planned for them. They banter, they talk, but she really wants nothing to do with him. Instead, she wants to secure her sister’s happiness with Mr. Bingley and maybe find herself a proper fitted suitor. But what is Elizabeth to do when Mr. Darcy has found that he is in love with Elizabeth?
Frankly, I’m not going to go much into the plot of this one. Many know the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy from the constant adaptations and from discovering the book on their own. In an attempt to bring girls into the comic shops, Marvel has published a graphic novel with fantastic covers, poor artwork, and plot holes in the adaptation. Read on for more details.
---------
Will Teens Like It? I don’t know…
--------
Things to be aware of: …
----------
Further Thoughts: I wasn’t originally going to pick this up after previewing this on the Marvel site ages ago, but for some reason, I was lured in by the cover (again). The cover of Pride and Prejudice is a play on popular girl teen magazine covers with hints and tips from family to advice to “celebrities.” In the back of this graphic novel, like many other works of collected issues, are the covers of the individual issues. Personally, I would have bought them for the covers alone. The cover artwork is light, fitting to the story and more able to draw the female readers than the art inside the book. The last cover featured brings the infamous first line around Lizzy and Darcy and continues the light artwork and bring a fitting cover to the last issue.
Now, the artwork. This is not the greatest work of art, nor is it the worst, yet I have a serious problem with it. Maybe it is because I’m comparing it to Ruse (long lost CrossGen Victorian period/detective/fantasy book), but the art style really doesn’t fit the story. The art style is a semi-realistic, superhero, Marvel style you’d expect to see in Ultimate Spiderman or some modern day story. It’d work there. It doesn’t work here. More often than not, hair color is messed up (there is one page where Jane’s hair is black “for shading”, to black with blonde spots, to blonde as the panels progress). All the faces fall “flat,” where the eyes aren’t full of life and it is hard to tell what expression is really being conveyed. The Philosopher Musician says it best: “Are they smiling or crying? That is one creepy smile.” Eye contact is often missed to where I think you should be able to see that the character is looking the other in the eye instead of off above a head. In other areas, characters don’t resemble themselves throughout the story. For example, at one point, I was confused. Who was I looking at, Lizzy or another of the female characters? The only way I could tell was context (but I think this would be difficult for anyone who doesn’t know the story).
The text is actually not terrible. I think the writer took as much of the original text as she could and inserted it into the story, which was fantastic and worked wonderfully, but I started to find plot holes. Obviously, points are missing in adaptations, but I cannot believe that one glaring point was omitted and then commented on by characters later. The big error I found was when Lizzy made a comment about how a particular woman would make a fitting wife for a specific husband. I looked back to make sure I hadn’t missed the reference earlier, because if you haven’t read the book, you have NO idea which guy she’s talking about. It wasn’t there during Mr. Collins’s visit. A pity because then I looked at this book with an even more critical view.
Nancy Butler is a romance novelist and was lucky enough to adapt this work. Unfortunately, I find this work is not worthy of a library purchase unless you are a bigger library looking to add titles. It is a wonderful attempt to get girls into comic shops (as she says in the introduction), but it falls flat. If the artwork was “lighter” in style and more like one of the covers, or more in the style of Ruse this would be a fantastic adaptation. I think this will just “fall away” into the comic abyss of titles that were a good faith effort, but just didn’t have it.
------
Source: Library copy.
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