The writer Stefan Petrucha and
artist Sho Murase are credited as the makers of the Nancy Drew graphic novels, at least the ones
I own. I don’t know much about their
other works; I only really came to the Nancy Drew ones because I was a fan of
the 83-year old character.
I have to say the comics impressed
me more than I expected them to. About a decade ago Stratemeyer Syndicate (or whoever owns her now) updated the character in an attempt to give her more flaws and make her more 'realistic', but it came across as ruining the character
I loved. The comics brought her back.
They kept the new flaws, but the
addition of images changed my perception of Nancy . Rather than the new books where Nancy specifically says she
notices something important and then never mentions it again, the graphic novel shows the important clues, but because the reader is a third point of view, I find it easier to believe that Nancy
might have missed it, rather than aggravating me when I solve the mystery in
chapter two and then have to wait for Nancy
to catch up in another ten chapters.
The pictures I used are from The Haunted
Dollhouse, my particular favorite because of all the bonus imagery thrown in to
celebrate Nancy ’s
75th anniversary, not to mention a good chunk of the dialogue is
attempting to work in the titles of previous books.
The book's plot and writing still aren't
as good as the old mysteries and I’m not overly fond of the character designs. If I were asked to make a Nancy Drew comic this wouldn't be how I'd do it, but considering how bad the new books can be, I'm glad they found a nice blend that can appeal to the fans of the old and the new.
The comics don’t have a lot of
variation in the panels, except in the really important scenes, or really
action heavy scenes, but this adds to the mystery, helping the reader determine
when important clues are shown.
Another thing I like about the
comics is the way they can mimic the creepy atmosphere of the old books. The newer text only books took out the ghost
effect and replaced it with action packed pages. It’s nice to see the comics
keep both creepiness and action.
This is a good example of how an adaptation can work or fail at capturing a work of writing. How do you think someone who hasn't read the earlier, all text books might approach the comic?
ReplyDeleteBecause I have read the books, I can't really say what it wold be like to go in without that perception, though I do know of a young girl who read one of these without having read any of the all text books, but she misinterpreted the ending, thinking that Nancy died.(I assume she was talking about the preview of the next book)
ReplyDeleteI think that, without the text books it could be an enjoyable story. This graphic novel isn't bad, it's just that I already had a perception of the characters and this book changed their personality.