A review by booksuperpower
Marley's Ghost by Josh O'Neill, Harvey Kurtzman, Shannon Wheeler, Gideon Kendall
2.0
Marley’s Ghost- Based on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens- Adapted by Harvey Kurtzman is a 2017 publication.
This is an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ which has finally been published in graphic novel format from Harvey Kurtzman’s vision. His project never came to fruition in his lifetime.
Josh O'Neill, Shannon Wheeler, and Gideon Kendall took his plans and brought them to life.
My review, to be clear, is on the graphic novel adaptation and not of the original classic by Charles Dickens. Be aware that the cover does clearly state the novel is only BASED on the original.
Therefore, one should not expect this graphic novel to be hundred percent faithful the Dicken’s classic.
That said, this is the first graphic novel adaptation of a classic novel I’ve read that was not completely true to the original. Leaving Tiny Tim’s struggles out of the novel was not a great move in my opinion and diminished my enjoyment of the novel significantly.
However, I could deal with omission, but ADDING new scenes is certainly a bold move. Again, I might have given it some latitude except for the fact that those additions were in direct contradiction to the message the book conveys, added nothing significant to the story, and was completely unnecessary, thus making this one a real disappointment for me.
The illustrations, however, are outstanding! The color is so rich and vivid and captures many of the similar or familiar images fans of the movie adaptations will enjoy immensely.
I enjoyed the inclusion of the some of the original drawings from decades past, and the history of how this graphic novel finally came to be, which is very interesting.
Overall, however, this was let down for me. I felt the authors failed to understand the underlying message of the original story or if they did get it, they did a very poor job of translating that message to the graphic novel format. However, if you just want the bare basics of the classic and would like to see how the story was illustrated, it is definitely worth taking a look at.
2.5 stars
This is an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ which has finally been published in graphic novel format from Harvey Kurtzman’s vision. His project never came to fruition in his lifetime.
Josh O'Neill, Shannon Wheeler, and Gideon Kendall took his plans and brought them to life.
My review, to be clear, is on the graphic novel adaptation and not of the original classic by Charles Dickens. Be aware that the cover does clearly state the novel is only BASED on the original.
Therefore, one should not expect this graphic novel to be hundred percent faithful the Dicken’s classic.
That said, this is the first graphic novel adaptation of a classic novel I’ve read that was not completely true to the original. Leaving Tiny Tim’s struggles out of the novel was not a great move in my opinion and diminished my enjoyment of the novel significantly.
However, I could deal with omission, but ADDING new scenes is certainly a bold move. Again, I might have given it some latitude except for the fact that those additions were in direct contradiction to the message the book conveys, added nothing significant to the story, and was completely unnecessary, thus making this one a real disappointment for me.
The illustrations, however, are outstanding! The color is so rich and vivid and captures many of the similar or familiar images fans of the movie adaptations will enjoy immensely.
I enjoyed the inclusion of the some of the original drawings from decades past, and the history of how this graphic novel finally came to be, which is very interesting.
Overall, however, this was let down for me. I felt the authors failed to understand the underlying message of the original story or if they did get it, they did a very poor job of translating that message to the graphic novel format. However, if you just want the bare basics of the classic and would like to see how the story was illustrated, it is definitely worth taking a look at.
2.5 stars