Reply With QuoteI want to see "Ooh Mr. Darcy" expanded to a 60 page graphic novel.
My husband got me the first two issues of this on a whim and I ended up getting the last three for completion's sake. It is what the name suggests, a 5 issue comic book adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. It keeps the dialog mostly intact but omits a lot of the dialog where Elizabeth is being quite clever and speaking in lengthy sentences, so no thinking caps are required. The covers are pretty cute, set up like a Vogue or Cosmo cover. It is, overall, a nice bit of fluff to read on a rainy day and a decent bit of fanservice for people who love the novel. I do have a list of complaints.
- There is no proper sense of time passing. It's sometimes difficult to tell when one ball has ended and another one has begun.
- Charlotte and Lizzy's friendship is pretty much cut, so there's no interest in her deciding to marry Mr. Collins.
- A lot of the more interesting dialog is gone because it would just be page after page of Darcy and Lizzy not looking at each other and being terribly clever.
- All Women Look The Same Except For Hair Color disease strikes, which is awful with this large of a female cast. Hurts worse because the men are all easily identifiable by their facial features and builds.
- No real period costume porn. If there's a book in which an artist should do research and flesh out lots of beautiful, drool-worthy gowns it should be this one.
- Mr. Darcy never takes his shirt off! Sure, it's not book-canon but but
But my biggest complaint is the ads. Advertising tells the reader who the audience is assumed to be. With Pride and Prejudice you would assume "Women will be attracted to this" and maybe attach advertising for things women might be interested in. And in some cases they did. Let me break it down.
Advertising that is appropriate for a Pride and Prejudice adapation:
1 Got Milk ad with some basketball guy
2 Got Milk ad with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine
1 eSurance/Star Trek
1 Verizon/Star Trek
1 Universal Orlando Resort
1 Ms. Marvel
2 2-page Wolverine Origins with Hugh Jackman being moderately attractive
4 Kia
2 Nissan Cube
1 Honda Fit
3 Honda Insight
1 2-page Honda Fit
1 Dark X-Men. I debated this one because it does have female characters, but they look somewhat porny. But it's a good jump-in point (the beginning) and there's nothing desperately stupid going on.
1 Marvel Divas. They WANT women to pick this up, but with those tits and camel toes? Good luck.
1 Captain America Reborn
2 abovetheinfluence that is kinda artsy
1 X-Factor, for having a non-porny female in the picture
Advertising that is hilariously inappropriate for a Pride and Prejudice adapation:
1 2-page Wolverine Origins ad that is just Wolverine's back and claws
1 Immortal Iron Fist with bloodied dude being choked out by a guy in the most awesome headdress ever
1 2-page abovetheinfluence ad about fat male nerds watching too much tv
1 Wolverine comic with a fleshless man in the Captain America costume
1 Spiderman fuck you forever Quesada and your stupid undoing of his marriage
1 Wolverine vs Stryfe muscles do not work that way
1 Krod Mandoon
1 Navy with phallic jet
1 Navy with underwater penis robot of some kind
1 Ultimatum, shouldn't be advertised in anything ever
1 ad with a woman in all black with huge bazongas. All it says is "THE NEW BLACK" which would be tremendously helpful for a female reader who doesn't actively collect Marvel comics
1 Days of Marvel Past for Evel Knievel
1 Halo Uprising
1 Got Milk Danica
2 Wolverine mobile game that is just his claws
2 The Conduit hurf durf lookit my big gun
1 abovetheinfluence clasic gaming related
2 War of Kings
1 Dark Wolverine so grumpy
1 Red Faction hurf durf lookit my gun? cattleprod? Gun that shoots cattleprods? Trenchcoat-wearing katana that dual weilds shotguns that shoot mini-katanas?
1 Star Wars Robot Chicken Episode 2
1 2-page Marvel Ultimate ALliance with Spiderman and Wolverine both punching a screen? Window? Cyrstal comb formed by lunar honeybees? The more I look at this the less sense I can make of it.
1 Marvel trucker hats. Really.
1 New Mutants with a hyper-aggressive Warlock.
1 Lugz. Do they even make Lugz for ladies?
1 Batman: Arkham Asylum videogame. HEY GUYS IT'S GRIMNDARKNBLUE IN HERE WHAT
Man, that's a lot of Wolverine.
I want to see "Ooh Mr. Darcy" expanded to a 60 page graphic novel.
Marvel Divas is actually supposed to be pretty good besides the covers and the name.
I have no idea why the fuck Marvel put ads with this. Circulation probably wasn't even that high.
Last edited by Nawid A; 08-24-2009 at 10:58 PM.
I hear that Marvel Divas is doing the old "Firestar's powers gave her cancer" storyline again.
Yeah my friend was telling me about that thing where they undid Spider-Man's marriage. I thought it sounded like the dumbest thing ever but then he also told me about Captain America and Batman dying and coming back and now it all sounds like the dumbest thing ever. Until I read "Ooh Mr. Darcy", which is totally awesome and actually made me sort of interested in Pride and Prejudice for like 10-15 seconds. I hope they consult Angie the next time they need to kill a superhero but then bring him back after whatever the appropriate amount of time is to resurrect a superhero and maximize sales.
My wife would probably read a Pride and Prejudice adaptation written on recycled toilet paper in invisible ink that you could only view under the light of a full moon.
All the online shops seem to be showing that it doesn't ship until November. Is there some sort of exclusivity with B&M comic stores?
I bet you are seeing the date for the re-print. Pretty much all the comic stores around here had several issues laying around.
The November date is for the trade which collects all the issues. I'd suggest getting it instead purely for the lack of ads.
And for the record, Spider-man post-One More Day > Spider-man pre-One More Day.
And no one should talk shit about Brubaker's Captain America run unless they've read it. Especially those first 42 issues.
It's good that there's someone out there keeping a book of entirely wrong, broken, totally backward records. Keep up the good work, brave soldier!Originally Posted by Nawid A
What can I say? I like Joe Kelly and Mark Waid and crew giving me what Spider-man is supposed to be over Gwen Stacy having the Green Goblin's kids.
I don't think Marvel picks and chooses ads based on the book or the target audience. Each month, every single book will have the same ads in the same locations. Well ... at least it seems that way.
Spiderman is supposed to be an incompetent permanent man-child who has semiconsensual sex while blackout drunk? Huh. I always thought he was supposed to be the guy who was all about responsibility. You know, with great power comes, and all that.
It just clicked for me, Matthew and Angie Gallant must be... brother and sister! THAT MUST BE IT!
You have of course already seen this?
And more recently, this?
Colin Firth was the best Mr. Darcy.
If you like Ooh Mr. Darcy then you should check out the rest of Kate Beaton's stuff, because she is great.
I heart Kate Beaton.
Kate Beaton is truly fantastic.
Her James Joyce cartoon still cracks me up whenever I think of it.
"I wrote you a letter."
(Angie> More Unammommer updates pls, BTW.)
Aaaahahahhahaha! Those letters are totally romantic - I don't care what anyone says!
I'm working on it. I got about a quarter of Wolfblade left to read.
Ahah.
I'm going to quote Kurt Busiek's intro to Astro City here:
That sounds more like current Spider-man than pre-OMD Spidey.Spider-man is adolescence from a different angle- the teenager stumbling toward adulthood writ large, making mistakes with disastrous consequence and doing his best to remedy them as he learns to be a responsible man in a adult society.
But the thing about coming-of-age stories is eventually the protagonist has to actually come of age. Y'know, grow up, finish school, move out of his parents' (or aunt's) house, get a job, maybe get married and have kids - i.e., get on with his life. As far as I can tell, though, Marvel - by which I mean EiC Joe Quesada - has decided that, no, really, Spider-man is all about some dude who either never leaves high school (e.g., Ultimate Spider-man) or who's stuck as a permanent man-child (post-OMD Spider-man); and either way, his life frequently sucks even though he's got hella superpowers and is usually surrounded by crazy-hawt ladies.
That kinda misses the point of Stan Lee's original comics, IMHO.
Is Mysterio being gay for Spider-Man still in canon, or did OMD retcon that?
Thanks to OMD we're gonna be treated to the Clone Saga again.
Are you saying that because of the out of continuity mini coming up or the Ben Reilly stuff coming up?
Because the mini is more because of the success of X-Men Forever and the upcoming Ben Reilly stuff isn't really the Clone Saga. I wouldn't judge it just yet.
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