• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Comment Policy
    • Disclosures & Disclaimers
  • Resources
    • Links, Essays & Articles
    • Fandomology!
    • CLAMP Directory
    • BlogRoll
  • Features & Columns
    • 3 Things Thursday
    • Adventures in the Key of Shoujo
    • Bit & Blips (game reviews)
    • BL BOOKRACK
    • Bookshelf Briefs
    • Bringing the Drama
    • Comic Conversion
    • Fanservice Friday
    • Going Digital
    • It Came From the Sinosphere
    • License This!
    • Magazine no Mori
    • My Week in Manga
    • OFF THE SHELF
    • Not By Manga Alone
    • PICK OF THE WEEK
    • Subtitles & Sensibility
    • Weekly Shonen Jump Recaps
  • Manga Moveable Feast
    • MMF Full Archive
    • Yun Kouga
    • CLAMP
    • Shojo Beat
    • Osamu Tezuka
    • Sailor Moon
    • Fruits Basket
    • Takehiko Inoue
    • Wild Adapter
    • One Piece
    • After School Nightmare
    • Karakuri Odette
    • Paradise Kiss
    • The Color Trilogy
    • To Terra…
    • Sexy Voice & Robo
  • Browse by Author
    • Melinda Beasi
    • Brigid Alverson
    • Sean Gaffney
    • Anna Neatrour
    • Michelle Smith
    • Travis Anderson
    • Phillip Anthony
    • Paul Beasi
    • Derek Bown
    • Katherine Dacey
    • Jaci Dahlvang
    • Angela Eastman
    • Erica Friedman
    • Sara K.
    • Megan Purdy
    • Emily Snodgrass
    • Nancy Thistlethwaite
    • Eva Volin
    • David Welsh
  • MB Blogs
    • A Case Suitable For Treatment
    • Experiments in Manga
    • MangaBlog
    • The Manga Critic
    • Manga Report
    • Soliloquy in Blue
    • Manga Curmudgeon (archive)

Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Teen Lit

Comic Conversion: The City of Ember

April 24, 2013 by Angela Eastman 3 Comments

The City of Ember | Novel: Jeanne DuPrau / Yearling | Graphic Novel: Dallas Middaugh & Niklas Asker / Random House Children’s Books

The City of Ember CoverOver 200 years ago, the City of Ember was created by the Builders, and now the citizens exist in a perpetual darkness only broken by the electric lights in their homes and lining the streets. But the lights keep going out, and the city’s power source, an ancient generator that no one understands, is constantly failing. Twelve-year-old Doon is determined to find the solution and save the city, but keeps hitting dead ends until his friend Lina finds a strange paper inside a lock box. Thanks to her baby sister, the words—written with the strange, typed script of the Builders—are only half-legible, but she can make out one: Instructions. Certain these are instructions for an exit, Lina and Doon set to deciphering the words so they can follow the directions out of Ember. But with everyone so certain that there is no escape, they find more resistance than they bargained for.

Released in 2003, Jeanne DuPrau’s The City of Ember gave us a teen dystopian novel before The Hunger Games was even a thing. There have since been three sequels and a 2008 movie adaptation, but it wasn’t until September, 2012 that Random House published a graphic novel adaptation. Adapted by Dallas Middaugh and illustrated by Niklas Asker, the comic takes DuPrau’s deeply shadowed world and attempts to bring it to life.

The City of Ember has an immediately interesting premise: two children in a city with perpetually depleting supplies who together find a way to save their people. The characters don’t know why they are there, and they don’t even know why it is always so dark (though readers will probably make their own accurate guess about that). The characters are also much more layered than expected. Doon wants to figure out the answer and save everyone, but it’s partly because he wants the glory of being Ember’s hero so his father, a kind man, can be proud of him. He’s also plagued with a volatile temper that often hinders him. Lina has fewer of these problems—too busy taking care of her sister, a toddler, and her ill grandmother. But she is sometimes overcome with desires—the best job, a pack of colored pencils (rare), a can of pineapple (rarer)—that she momentarily loses sight of important things, like Doon’s concern or her sister. These all add up to make Doon and Lina more sympathetic, as we see pieces of ourselves in them, and even increase our anxiety and investment, as we see how they’ve gotten in their own way before they even realize.

The big problem I had with the novel was the pacing. While the opening gets us right into the story with the choosing of jobs and Doon’s concern over the power and food supply, it’s mostly a slow buildup of information until about a third of the way through the book, when Lina finally finds the Instructions. And after that things move slowly as Lina struggles over each word and tries to get others to help her, like the mayor or her flighty friend Lizzie, who obviously don’t care about her discovery. Things do pick up once Doon gets involved and they start to solve the puzzle. Also, the anxiety does build up at the end as we see how Doon and Lina messed up in their decision to wait on revealing their discovery, and find themselves on the run.

The City of Ember GNAsker did a decent job portraying the darkness of this world in the graphic novel, even filling the gutters with black, and his detailed sketchings of rooms and buildings display the drabness of everything: the cluttered rooms, and clothing and items drained of color from their multiple uses. Asker also understands the importance of silence as he draws out moments like Doon’s exploration of the Pipeworks, and seems to know that narration is entirely unnecessary if his art and panel order are clear, such as when Lina discovers her grandmother has died in the darkness of night.

Dallas Middaugh must have noticed similar issues with the pacing when he adapted the story. Very quickly we see that he cut things out to keep the story from coming too much to a pause, like Lina’s friend Clary (whose important actions are performed by Mrs. Murdo) and even Lina’s failed attempts to show the Instructions to people other than Doon. Trimming the plot helps the pace of the story, but it also alters the emotional effect many of the novel’s scenes had. One big example, which seems very small, is when Lina goes to buy colored pencils from the shop. First, because we missed the prior scene of her aching to just go look at them, we don’t get Lina’s experience of coveting something that others don’t have, which becomes important when Lizzie and then the mayor are discovered to be hoarding rare food. This also diminishes our perception of Lina’s guilt when she loses her sister, Poppy, because she’s too busy debating on whether or not to buy the pencils. So while Asker does an excellent job of showing us a stricken Lina as she watches Poppy sleep later that night, we don’t have as clear of a sense that this is her fear combining with her own extreme guilt.

Jeanne DuPrau’s original novel has a fascinating premise that is riddled with anxiety from the first pages. Its slow trek towards the point keeps it from being as immediately exciting as something like The Hunger Games, but DuPrau starts to make up for this in the faster-paced climax. Middaugh and Asker’s adaptation moves the plot along more quickly and manages to convey enough background information through invented dialogue. But certain things are lost—Lina’s guilt, Doon’s temper, and the panic of other citizens that causes some to run out into the the darkness in hope of finding light—that diminish the characters, flatten them, and turn them into people we’re just not quite that invested in. So while The City of Ember graphic novel effectively gets the story across, it just doesn’t have enough feeling to put it on par with the novel.

Filed Under: Comic Conversion, FEATURES, FEATURES & REVIEWS Tagged With: Dallas Middaugh, Jeanne DuPrau, Niklas Asker, Teen Lit, The City of Ember

Comic Conversion: The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel

December 6, 2012 by Angela Eastman 3 Comments

The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel | Novel: Cassandra Clare / Margaret K. McElderry Books | Manga: Hyekyung Baek / Yen Press

Tessa Gray arrives in England to live with her brother, but instead of Nathaniel she finds herself kidnapped. A pair of warlocks keep her locked in a house, forcing her to utilize a power she didn’t know she had—the ability to change into anyone, living or dead, and access their memories simply by holding an object they possessed. Suddenly Tessa is rescued by Will Herondale, a beautiful and dangerous boy who claims to be a Shadowhunter—warriors blessed with angelic power who exist to rid the world of demons. The rest of the Shadowhunters, like the diminutive Charlotte and the kind but sickly Jem, agree to protect Tessa from the mysterious Magister who had her kidnapped, and to help her find her lost brother. But as Tessa, Will, and Jem strive to figure out what is happening, Tessa may uncover some terrible truths.

Cassandra Clare’s first series, The Mortal Instruments, tells the story of Clary and Jace, a pair of superbly star-crossed lovers, which takes place in the present day. When the first three of this soon-to-be six book series was completed, Clare began work on a prequel that takes place over a hundred years before Clary and Jace’s adventures, The Infernal Devices. It’s not necessary to read both series together, but The Infernal Devices does provide some background for the other The Mortal Instruments, giving us a look not only at the ancestors of some of our favorite characters from the first set of books, but also a peek into the earlier lives of some of the immortals that make an appearance in both books. Since I often find myself more delighted with the side characters (in this case, a couple of immortals) than the main pair in The Mortal Instruments, this is a series I couldn’t help but pick up. Yen Press’s release of the manga adaptation was the perfect excuse to give this series a go.

While this novel, and presumably the rest of the trilogy, can stand on its own, there are some times when Clare seems to take for granted that her readers are already familiar with The Mortal Instruments series, as she doesn’t go quite so deeply into the details about Shadowhunters and their history, or spend so much time explaining the problems with Downworlders. The big things are easy to pick up on, though, like the harshness of their lives (most don’t grow very old, as they die in battle, and if they decide to leave they lose all contact with the ones they loved) and the Accords, a deal set with creatures like vampires and werewolves to help keep the peace.

A problem I’ve had with Clare’s writing in the past is the abundance of dead details—in particular, descriptions that have absolutely no bearing on the story. Most things such as dresses and rooms I can let slide, as Clare uses these descriptions to fix her readers in the time period. Other things, however, are entirely useless, like her constant referral to Will’s blue eyes. Bits like this waste time, slowing down the pace of the novel while also leaving little for the reader to imagine herself. Another thing that tends to clunk up the story is the tendency for conversations to veer off course, like when Tessa begins to ask Will to leave her brother alone, then suddenly rants (for pages) about Will’s personality and how he should be looking for Jem’s cure. These conversations just turn into characters saying things the readers already know or that are inconsequential to the story, unnecessarily dragging out the time between plot points.

Even with my gripes, Clockwork Angel is an entertaining young adult book, particularly if you’re already a fan of Clare’s other series. Her story is engaging, with sudden twists and betrayals, which are still exciting even if you can see them coming for ages. The cast is diverse (if predictable), with both the “good” and “bad” boy romantic interests, but even the most seemingly flat characters, like Jessamine, have hidden depths that, even if they don’t reveal themselves completely in this novel, leave the readers to believe that we’ll come to understand these characters as the series progresses.

Now, for the manga. Hyekyung Baek’s adaptation does a good job of keeping us close to Tessa, convincingly converting the narration to her inner thoughts and giving us a shot of her dynamic expressions even in the middle of the excitement. Compared to the novel, the comic’s plot really clips along, with Baek skipping some unneeded scenes and cutting down the rambling conversations. But unfortunately, more often than not this swift pace works against the manga. Characters are moved like props from one place to the next so it’s hard to keep track of their movements, such as in one scene in which Tessa and company shift from the library to an upstairs room seemingly instantaneously. And while I feel readers get a clear understanding of Tessa and her character arc, the too-quick pace is damaging to the development of the other characters: we never get a clear picture of Charlotte’s trouble and insecurities with running the institute, and even snotty, selfish Jessamine comes across more sympathetic in the novel.

I enjoyed Baek’s art in the Gossip Girl adaptation, but while her style worked wonders in that glamorous, sexy world, it doesn’t quite click for me in Infernal Devices. Don’t get me wrong, Baek’s character designs are gorgeous, but I feel her style often makes the teenage characters look too old, and backgrounds are bland and boring, even when she includes detail. Baek also seems to go for prettiness over what was actually described in the novel, most notably when it comes to the maid Sophie’s face. When we first meet Sophie, Clare describes her scar: “a thick, silvery ridged scar slashed from the left corner of her mouth to her temple, pulling her face sideways and distorting her features into a twisted mask.” Baek draws the scar merely as a long scratch on the cheek, which could be taken as a stray strand of hair if Tessa didn’t mention it. One thing Baek’s art definitely improved upon were the goofy asides. Bits that came across as a bit awkward in the novel worked more easily in the comic, as exaggerated expressions and super-deformed characters gave the jokes more punch.

Many of my issues with Clare’s prose are stylistic, and while I wasn’t as invested in this novel as I have been in her other series, the problems I had still did not get in the way of my overall enjoyment of the book. The manga adaptation has its good points, but overall it left me feeling frustrated. While Clare’s novel may meander, the manga’s swift pace just barrels through the plot and skims over characterization. Baek’s adaptation is something fans will likely enjoy, but those looking to get a proper introduction to Clare’s universe are better off going with the novel.

Filed Under: Comic Conversion, FEATURES, FEATURES & REVIEWS Tagged With: Cassandra Clare, graphic novel, Hyekyung Baek, manga, Teen Lit, The Infernal Devices, yen press

Comic Conversion: A Wrinkle in Time

October 29, 2012 by Angela Eastman 3 Comments

A Wrinkle in Time | Novel: Madeleine L’Engle / Laurel Leaf | Graphic Novel: Hope Larson / Farrar Strraus Giroux

Meg Murry is the intelligent daughter of two world-renowned scientists, but her world is still falling apart. Unable to cope in school, she’s failing her grade and getting in fights with teachers; meanwhile her four-year-old brother Charles Wallace, the smartest, kindest person in her life, refuses to talk to those outside his family, leaving the whole town thinking he’s a simpleton. Everything would be better with her father around, but Mr. Murry has been missing for years, ever since he went to Washington to work on a top secret project. Then, a mysterious old woman named Mrs. Whatsit appears at their house on a dark and stormy night. She and her friends, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which, take Meg, Charles, and their friend Calvin on a quest through space and time to save their father and fight a battle against the darkness that threatens to consume the universe.

First published in 1962, A Wrinkle in Time has won a number of awards, including the Newbery medal for children’s literature. Despite that, Madeleine L’Engle had quite a struggle getting it published, being rejected almost 30 times because the story was “too different.” Now, her science fiction novel has been continuously in print for 50 years and continues to make showings on lists of top books for children. In 2010 publishing house Farrar, Strause and Giroux — the original publishers of A Wrinkle in Time — decided to create a graphic novel version of the now classic book, signing on artist Hope Larson to bring the beloved story to life.

I’ve been a long-time fan of Madeleine L’Engle, and though my awe of her really began with A Ring of Endless Light (to this day one of my favorite books) A Wrinkle in Time and all of its companion novels hold their own special place. It’s difficult to think of a contemporary novel, children’s or adult, that you can compare this to. Very basically it is the usual story of good versus evil — the light against the dark — but her characters aren’t as simple as that. Charles Wallace is empathic and smarter than most humans can imagine, but he’s also arrogant, while Meg, the ultimate hero of the story, is emotional, angry, and easily affected by the evil creature IT. When talking about Earth, which is shadowed by a darkness that has taken over many other worlds, their friend Calvin admits, “We make some awful bloopers there.” But, he points out, humankind is fighting the shadow, trying to be better than they have been. That is what A Wrinkle in Time is about, perhaps more than good vs. evil; it’s about knowing and accepting your own faults, and striving to be better than you may have been before.

Right away in the graphic novel we see the famous opening words scrawling across the page: “It was a dark and stormy night.” From that point on, Hope Larson remains faithful to the original book. She did still make the decision to edit down some parts, such as when Meg is momentarily left alone in the darkness after she rescues her father from his prison. These were things that worked very well in the context of the book, increasing the apprehension and Meg’s fear. In the graphic novel, however, this would have resulted in repetitive images and slowed down the pace.

Though L’Engle’s original novel is written in the third person, the story is told entirely from Meg’s point of view. Obviously aware of this, Larson used some effective techniques to keep it that way. Rather than copy-and-pasting narrative passages from the novel, Larson reworded portions so they were Meg’s first-person thoughts, keeping us close to Meg. Larson also does something interesting with her art while Meg is paralyzed — there is none. For five and a half pages there are is nothing but small black squares as Meg struggles to move and listens in on her father and Calvin’s conversation. By keeping the panels small, Larson maintains the steady pace while also creating the feeling of movement more effectively than one black page full of text would have done.

Larson made the interesting choice to color the entire graphic novel in shades of blue. While I would have loved to see the story in full color, the soft monotone grants the images an ethereal quality that fits with the novel’s tone. The character designs, for the most part, were what I’ve been imagining for years: Meg is scruffy and grumpy, and Larson remembered to keep a bruise on her cheek throughout, while Calvin is lanky and adorable. The only one that didn’t quite reconcile with the image I’d had in my head is Charles Wallace. Larson’s attempts to have Charles look far too intelligent and wise for his years made him look a bit strange to my eyes. This works much better later on when Charles is being controlled by IT, but Larson’s design makes him appear a bit creepy long before that’s supposed to be the case.

Really, any problems I have with the graphic novel are just nitpicking. Any changes Larson made were minimal and effective in maintaining the flow and tone of L’Engle’s novel. The biggest issue I had was with some of the character designs, but that’s ultimately a matter of preference rather than quality. Larson’s love and respect for A Wrinkle in Time is apparent in every page, and I couldn’t have ever possibly hoped to experience a more satisfying adaptation of L’Engle’s work. I would always want to urge kids to read L’Engle’s book, it would not be disappointing in the least to see them reading this graphic novel instead.

Filed Under: Comic Conversion, FEATURES & REVIEWS Tagged With: A Wrinkle in Time, graphic novel, Hope Larson, Madeleine L'Engle, Teen Lit

Comic Conversion: Cirque Du Freak

August 2, 2012 by Angela Eastman 2 Comments

Cirque Du Freak | Novel: Darren Shan / Little, Brown and Company | Manga: Takahiro Arai / Yen Press

When Darren Shan and his best friend Steve find a flyer for Cirque Du Freak (a circus of freaks) they just have to go. A wolf-man, a snake-boy—what boy wouldn’t love it? But when Mr. Crepsley and his spider, Madame Octa, come on stage, both boys are overcome with desire—Darren, to own the spider, and Steve, to become a vampire! Darren manages to get his hands on the spider, but his control slips and the deadly bug bites his friend. Mr. Crepsley is the only one with an antidote, and he will only hand it over on one condition: Darren must become his assistant.

According to his website, Cirque Du Freak‘s author (confusingly also named Darren Shan) was inspired to write his vampire novels by the combined inspiration of Goosebumps, with its easy-to-read format, and the dark horror of Stephen King novels. Later, manga artist Takahiro Arai was awarded the opportunity to recreate Shan’s story in manga form after winning a contest. Even though the manga adaptation was originally published in Shonen Sunday, thanks to Yen Press’s ties with Little, Brown and Company (the original novels’ publisher) they were able to print the manga in English.

I love creepy stories. I ate up the Goosebumps series as a kid, cringing and wincing at every page and then scrambling for the next book. I’d been eying the Cirque Du Freak novels precisely because of the promise for creepiness, but unfortunately I found myself disappointed. Despite the generally excited tone of the narrator, the descriptions often read with too little emotion to invoke fear or horror, even when a woman’s hand is bitten clean off by a wolf-man. Shan also manages to ruin his tension simply by reminding us of it too much. In the prologue, his narrator reiterates the point that this is a “true story” where bad things can happen—a common enough tactic that beefs up the tension. But then, Shan keeps doing it: “Little did I know that Alan’s mysterious piece of paper was to change my life forever. For the worse!” “If only I hadn’t been so scared of looking like a coward! I could have left and everything would have been fine.” It quickly becomes repetitive, and makes it feel like Shan is trying to force anxiety on the readers.

Despite my dissatisfaction with the creepy tone, the story is still pretty compelling. A boy becomes a vampire not because he wants to or is forced to, but because that’s the price he pays to save a friend from the mistake he made. There are quite a few times where the novel drags. Shan apparently feels compelled to describe all of Darren’s actions—even unimportant ones like the chores he did while waiting to go to the circus—and the chapters set aside to describe all of the freaks take ages. The plot itself is engrossing enough to still qualify the book as a page turner, but it’s tough to ignore all the awkward bits.

Takahiro Arai’s manga adaptation is definitely creepier. This is thanks in large part to the art; particularly with the freaks, the character designs at times take on a surreal, over-exaggerated feel, and his backgrounds of oversized crescent moons and propped up coffins look like scenes out of Soul Eater. Sometimes Arai takes it a little too far with Steve. His wide eyes and sharp-toothed grins are too quick to give away that there’s something messed up about this kid, but even so he feels like more of a threat than he did in the novel. Darren does look much younger than I imagined him (though to be fair, the book never specifies his age), and unfortunately the designs for the side characters are either weak or generic-looking, like the “cute girl” assistants in the freak show.

The manga takes a couple of liberties with the story in both minor and major ways. In the manga, Darren and his friends play soccer for money rather than fun (as they do in the novel), but this streamlines their path between getting cash and buying the tickets. Arai also changes some of Mr. Crepsley’s actions. First, he gives the flyer directly to Darren (rather than someone handing a flyer to a friend’s brother), again streamlining the plot while also making it seem more deliberate than coincidental that Darren was there that night. Then Mr. Crepsley shows up immediately to take back Madam Octa after Steve is bitten—meaning that Darren’s little sister sees him. Having not read the rest of the series, I don’t know if Darren’s family ever makes it back into the narrative, so this could either be foreshadowing that Annie will eventually figure out what happened…or an unfulfilled expectation for the reader.

The sometimes emotionless writing of the book really kills the creepiness that Shan obviously wants to build, and while the pacing is quick there’s a good deal of unnecessary action that still manages to gunk the story up. Arai’s adaptation fixes a lot of these problems, rooting out unnecessary tidbits and making the story just a little scarier. But I think what I like the most about the manga version is that if I had had no awareness of the original book, I probably wouldn’t have been able to pick this out as an adaptation. The manga flows well on its own, and the straight-from-the-text narration is kept at an astonishingly low level. And even though the novel has the strange feeling of being more of a “part one” than its own stand-alone story, the full volume of set up works well in the manga format. The Cirque Du Freak manga has its own issues, but it’s still the better choice.

Filed Under: Comic Conversion, FEATURES, FEATURES & REVIEWS Tagged With: Cirque Du Freak, Darren Shan, Little Brown and Company, manga, Takahiro Arai, Teen Lit, yen press

Comic Conversion: Witch & Wizard

December 9, 2011 by Angela Eastman 9 Comments

Witch & Wizard | Novel: James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet / Grand Central Publishing | Manga: Svetlana Chmakova / Yen Press

One minute Whit Allgood is falling asleep in front of the TV, the next an army is breaking down his door, brandishing guns and dragging his sister Wisty out of her bed. But the biggest shock for Whit and Wisty comes when they’re accused of being a wizard and a witch by the New Order—the all new government that’s taken over the whole country—and are sentenced to death. As they struggle to survive in their jail cell, the siblings discover that they do have special powers, from telekinesis to bursting into flames. Even after they manage to break out, thanks to the help of a ghostly friend, Whit and Wisty still have to find their parents, and they might have to break back into jail to do it.

Witch & Wizard is one of the latest series to come out of the James Patterson novel mill, this time written in conjunction with Gabrielle Charbonnet. Though there was already a graphic novel adaptation from IDW, Yen Press decided to come out with their own version of the dystopian novel using artist Svetlana Chmakova, creator of Dramacon and Night School, to create Witch & Wizard: The Manga. Both versions of the story have their flaws, but one might be more worth your time than the other.

Let’s start with the novel. One good thing you can immediately say about Witch & Wizard is that it gets right into the action. The story has barely started before the New Order troops are breaking down the Allgoods’ door. It doesn’t slow down much from there, even when the siblings are locked in prison, as they deal with sadistic jailers and have to fight a pack of mad dogs for food and water. The short chapters (most only last 1 or 2 pages) help create the illusion that you are speeding through the book. But even with all the rapid action, the story can get pretty clunky at times. You’ll start the next chapter, and suddenly Whit and Wisty are somewhere else, or there’s someone new in the scene who wasn’t there before. And the short chapters, while helping you feel like the book is a fast read, hurt the overall smoothness of the longer, more dramatic scenes.

Whit and Wisty are certainly fun characters, with their wisecracks, determination, and magical powers. Wisty in particular has an entertaining, sarcastic tone. But unfortunately, it’s all surface. Though the story is in first person for both characters, you never feel like you get truly, deeply in their heads. Even when the story pauses for inner thoughts it’s pretty generic, like how awful or cool or sad something is. Then there is the villain, The One Who Is The One, who should be dark and terrifying… but for some reason, Patterson and Charbonnet have him spouting some of the weirdest lines. They range from awkward – “I can even shut your sister up!” – to just plain goofy – “TRICKS ARE FOR KIDS!” – and really diminish the fear readers should have of this all-powerful villain.

Now we come to Yen Press’s manga adaptation by Svetlana Chmakova. The visual aspect of the comic actually helps with the clunky-ness in the book. New character appearances are less sudden, and we see the transition from one place to another, so there’s no flipping back a page to see how Whit and Wisty suddenly got from point A to point B. Chmakova’s art also helps to brighten up some of the less-than-stellar character personalities. Sure, the villains are just as one-dimensional as in the novel, with their little dark beetle eyes, but other characters seem more human in her hands. Whit wears a blank look of shock when he discovers that Celia is a ghost, and Wisty’s range of expressions, from cartoonish excitement at living in a fancy department store to the dark, narrow-eyed look when she casts her angry spells, make this witch even more fun and exciting than her novel version.

Despite the pace of the original, cuts were needed to fit the whole story into a single graphic novel. We miss out on some interesting shows of magic, like when Wisty floats in her sleep, or Whit speeds himself up to handily defeat some guards. But the comic also does away with some bits I didn’t care for, most obviously The One’s horrible, cheesy lines. The One still isn’t as dark and foreboding as I would like (you can always go creepier) but at least his dialogue doesn’t make me cringe.

The Witch & Wizard novel has a lot of problems that I have a hard time overlooking. While the pacing is nice and quick, the novel persistently trips itself up with awkward breaks and sudden shifts in location. And the plot, while a decently done fight-the-power dystopian, can get repetitive, takes unnecessary turns, and ends so abruptly I’m honestly surprised Patterson and Charbonet didn’t add in a couple more chapters to smooth things out. Chmakova’s adaptation doesn’t escape the plot issues of the original, but in streamlining the plot to fit into a single graphic novel she manages to toss out some of the minor chinks, resulting in an easier flow. When you combine that with art that is much more expressive than Patterson’s prose, overall you get a more enjoyable read. It’s still not perfect, but Witch & Wizard the manga improves enough on the original to be worth your money.

Filed Under: Comic Conversion, FEATURES Tagged With: graphic novel, manga, Novel, Teen Lit, Witch & Wizard, yen press

 | Log in
Copyright © 2010 Manga Bookshelf | Powered by WordPress & the Genesis Framework