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Saturday, October 27, 2012 ( 10/27/2012 08:41:00 PM ) Bill S.
The new set, Halloween Classics The collection features five adaptations, one of which proves to be from a surprising, non-literary source. Two of the tales, Washington Irving’s “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and H.P. Lovecraft’s “Cool Air” are perhaps the most familiar while works by Mark Twain (the comic “A Curious Dream”) and Arthur Conan Doyle (“Lot No. 249”) prove more obscure, though I do recall seeing a modernized version of the latter in the movie spin-off of Tales from the Darkside. The fifth adaptation takes from movie history itself, a graphic story retelling of the German silent The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The stories throughout prove solid. Ben Avery and Shepherd Hendrix’s “Sleepy Hollow” reminded me of elements of the story (most particularly relating to the character of story patsy Ichabod Crane) that I’d forgotten with the Disney cartoon version as my primary prior recollection of Washington Irving’s tale. Antonella Caputo and Nick Miller’s “A Curious Dream” is a suitably cartoonish adaptation of a minor but amusing slice of Twain, while both Pomplun and Simon Gane’s version of the mummy story “Lot No. 249” and Rod Lott/Craig Wilson’s work on “Cool Air” both succeed in capturing their author’s respective voices. To these eyes, Wilson’s visualization of Lovecraft’s darkly anxious and xenophobic world is especially convincing. But the collection's highlight proves editor Pomplun and cartoonist Matt Howarth’s version of “Caligari,” which I believe is this series first adaptation outside of the printed page. The duo brings that stylized classic to life in a way, I suspect, that proves more emotionally accessible than the original German silent. If the color comic proves visually less expressionistic than the original black-and-white film, Howarth still manages to convey its essential strangeness, most memorably in a sequence where a sinister somnambulist carries the damsel-in-distress over the rooftops of the town. After this finale, all that’s left to cap this Halloween celebration is for our horror host Merwin to rip off his mask and reveal the hideous ghoul within -- which of course he does. The Crypt Keeper would be cacklingly proud. (First published on Blogcritics.) Labels: classics illustrated # | |
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