Pride and Prejudice, Graphic Novel

While waiting for the plumbers to repair the water lines at the laundremat--so much for going early on a Wednesday morning to beat the crowd--I headed over to Borders. I needed some blank books for my nephews (didn't find what I was looking for). I did notice that Marvel comics had depicted Pride and Prejudice as a graphic novel (all five issues were bound in one), though. The front cover was very eye-catching--kind of like the magazines in grocery store check-out lines (and I do have a thing for kitsch); however,an illustration on the back cover had me a bit concerned--it looked like the models for the Bennet sisters were taken straight from the Joe Wright/Keira Knightly film version. Despite this, I bought the book anyway (the film is visually interesting, but the screenwriters should be shot: the title is Pride AND Prejudice and they left out the prejudice. Lots of pride though, but it isn't fueled by much. The character of Wickahm only gets 5 minutes of screen time--not much to seduce three women, nearly run off with one and actaully run off with the third--and that doesn't even allow for his dalliance with Mary King!)

The person doing the text adaptation did an okay job, and I was delighted with several of the issue covers, but it irked me that the visuals inside so heavily relied on the one film adaptation. Why couldn't the illustrator do something original? The Brock, Thomson, and Hassall illustrations are different yet still convey the flavor of the story (okay, so most of them pre-date all the recent film and telly adaptations). Because the illustrator relied on this one film, the colors are drab (never mind that Regency fashion was quite colorful for both men and women; see blog entry on Bright Star)

I was amused when the writer said she had to tell the illustrator to include more bonnets--that was one of Joe Wright's complaints, too many bonnets, in his director's commentary.