Pride & Prejudice

To the left you’ll see the cover to Pride & Prejudice issue #1 of 5. Not only did I actually read this, but I bought it. “Why?” you might ask. Mostly because of that cover, beautifully done by Sonny Liew. The best way I can describe it is “adorable.” Because it is. The art is clean, the layout is that of a modern magazine cover, and it just feels very welcoming. Like, “hey, read me, you’ll enjoy this.” Except you won’t. Because all they did was take Jane Austen’s words and added some sub-par art with it so they could call it a comic book.

For a while now, Marvel has been doing adaptations of classic literature and novels. So far they’ve done Three Musketeers, Moby Dick, The Illiad, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and several others; all of which I’ve heard good things. And I personally think Oz is a pretty good accomplishment mostly due to Scottie Young’s fantastically child-like art.

But that’s where P&P suffers so much. I would probably enjoy it a whole lot more if the art was as good and well spirited as it is on this cover. But when you open it up, all you’ll find is something that looks like the interior of a Sears catalogue from the 1800′s. Everybody is smiling as they speak, no one is really expressing any emotion, and the art itself just sits there. Nothing ever pops off the page.

You have a story that’s based around people talking constantly, which means the artist(Hugo Petrus) has to make everything else look as interesting as possible, and that’s something he seems to fail at.

My other complaint was the adaption of the dialogue itself. I understand that they’re trying to keep it very close to the source material, but I felt like they could’ve cut down on the long-winded discussions and observations. It seemed like Nancy Butler(writer) was trying too hard to cram a whole lot words in one speech bubble, and that always comes off as sloppy to me.

I think I’m mostly disappointed with this because it could’ve been good. The artist that made this cover to the issue had an idea in mind, and instead of adding some modern thought to the recreation of this story, they just went the straight and narrow path.

But I love the cover, so I’m kind of glad I bought it.

-Ben, the comic guru