A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of The Four,
by I.N.J. Culbard and Ian Edginton. Based on the novels by Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle. Published by Self-Made Hero.
These are very faithful adaptations to the source material,
containing almost exclusively Doyle's own words. Although there are many necessary
compressions, there is very little additional material or substantial changes
from the source material. The trick that the writer had to pull off was to
decide which portions of each story to include, how to abridge the story in
such a way as to manage to still tell the entire story.
One of the best part of the adaptation of A Study inScarlet is the way in which the long stretch in Utah is covered. In the
original, Doyle tells this in as an omniscient narrator, while this adaptation
makes the story more clearly as Jefferson's Hope's words. This enables the art
to bounce back and forth between Hope telling the story, with reaction shots of
Holmes and Watson, and the actual flashback scenes in Utah. The
artist is then able to give us many "camera angles" from which to show this
action, which makes it easier to read in graphic form than in Doyle's prose.
This is a very good use of the sequential art medium, and is an example of
using the form in a way that prose cannot be used.
The iconic meeting between Holmes and Watson is handled well,
and the choices that the writer made in what to leave out and leave in made
sense.
There is less "work" to be done in adapting The Sign of the Four, as the original story moves at a terrific pace and tells
an entertaining tale, start to finish. The only part of the adaptation that I
don't think I would have followed without the original fresh in my mind was the
"blind alley" that the dog leads Holmes and Watson on. But other than
that one scene, the story was easy to follow, and the adaptation very enjoyable.
It must be hard for an artist to have a "new take"
on Holmes and Watson, who must have been portrayed more than a hundred times in
various forms. I immediately liked the look of Watson, but it took me forty to
fifty pages (each work is approximately 120 pages) to get used to this look of
Holmes. I could not reference him to any other Holmes that I was used to
seeing, but this is actually a testament to the strength of the character
design. The artist also does a fine job distinguishing the many supporting and
side characters that populate these books.
source: public library
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