Welcome back to Boris Karloff month! Today I'm returning once more to the radio series Theater Guild on the Air and their adaptation of Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations" on April 5, 1953. Boris Karloff plays the part of the convict who befriends and finances the protagonist, Pip. Karloff puts in a great performance as the convict. You can hear it at archive.org by clicking here!
Welcome back to Boris Karloff month! Today I'm returning to the radio series Theater Guild on the Air and their adaptation of Charles Dickens' "David Copperfield" from December 24, 1950. Boris Karloff takes the part of the villainous Uriah Heep with Richard Burton as the protagonist David Copperfield. This is one of my favourite Dickens novels! You can hear it at archive.org by clicking here!
No Christmas season would be complete without Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. I grew up enjoying the 1951 film version, Scrooge, but I believe the single best adaptation of the tale occurred on Orson Welles' Campbell Playhouse on December 24, 1939. It features Orson as the narrator with Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge and Welles' Mercury Players in the other roles.
Lionel Barrymore made his performance as Scrooge an annual tradition on the radio for many years and this time, with the best radio players in the medium, it comes off amazingly well. You can listen to it at archive.org here.
More OTR holiday programming tomorrow!
How this comic book came to be is almost the most interesting thing about the book. Kurtzman spend years working on his graphic novel Marley's Ghost, but could never find a publisher. This comic was drawn by Gideon Kendall using Kurtzman's layouts and designs as his guide, with Josh O'Neill and Shannon Wheeler adapting Dickens' text to the medium (not why you need two writers to adapt the text, but here we are). The book includes images of Kurtzman's layouts and of a finished page which he had Jack Davis draw. I'm afraid the comparison between those pages and the actual book hurts the finished product a little, in my view. Kurtzman's art was simply so uniquely his own that I was instantly more taken with his layouts than those of Kendall. Likewise, Jack Davis' cartoonish characters outstrip those of Kendall.
But there's nothing wrong with Kendall's efforts on this adaptation. His own cartoony designs (particularly the long-faced Scrooge) are excellent, keeping the scenes lively. And it may simply be impossible to do wrong when faithfully adapting Dickens, which is what this book is - it retains much of the dialogue from the original work.
As I write this, Marley's Ghost is on sale at Comixology. Why not pick it up before the holidays are over?
This is a pretty simple and straight forward tale, but it has one terrific closing line. A juror serving on a murder trial finds himself possessed of inside knowledge on the case when the ghost of the murdered man begins feeding him information!
You can download a copy of this radio show from archive.org here.
ADAPTED FROM: The series of novels by Laurell K. Hamilton. Adapted by Jessica Ruffner and Ron Lim.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Anita Blake is a professional reanimator (much as the Great Gildersleeve was a water commissioner) who keeps running into vampires in the course of her work, sometimes using her talents to assist the police, but always menaced by the seductive Jean-Claude, who wants to make her his servant.
MY PRIOR EXPERIENCE: I read the first Blake novel Guilty Pleasures when I was a co-writer on the Guilty Pleasures Handbook for Marvel; what can I say, I was young, humble and wanted to see my name on something other than super heroes.
WHAT IT'S LIKE: Anita runs into vampires who posture at her; she postures back; they go their separate ways. The story is firmly in the Daishell Hammett school of detective tales, concerned more with characters' dialogue and suggesting at menace rather than action driving the plot. People in Anita's world are very casual about the supernatural; at one point, a young reanimator Anita is helping to train is attacked by two vampires who bite him; does Anita charge to the rescue, teaching the vampires a lesson in pain? No, she more or less shoos them away and their master scolds them. One cover depicts some vampiric snake creatures which seems promising; the creatures become snakes for only one panel in the story itself and don't actually start a fight. In that Hammett vein, Anita doesn't play detective so much as she's constantly thrown into events beyond her control and triumphs by outliving her enemies. I always feel sorry for the innocent bystanders, though.
As a long-time fan of Ron Lim, there are two ways to consider his art in this series; on the one hand, Lim is aping the style of Brett Booth (Anita Blake's original artist); on the other hand, Lim is working without an inker, making this the purest Lim I'll probably ever see published. I do admit some disappointment with Lim's work in one issue where he depicts Anita having a telephone conversation over the course of a page. Isn't it comics 101 to switch out at least one panel to show us the person on the other end of the conversation? Special props to the colorist, Laura Villari, whose work is all the more vital without an inker present.
ADAPTED FROM: The series of novels by Stephen King. Adapted by Peter David, Sean Phillips, Luke Ross and Michael Lark.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Roland the gunslinger pursues the mysterious Man in Black across a wasteland of mutants and monsters, confronting supernatural horrors with a western flavour.
MY PRIOR EXPERIENCE: Nil.
WHAT IT'S LIKE: This is genuinely great material which I found easy to slip into despite my lack of familiarity with the Dark Tower novels and comics. I think anyone could drop in on Dark Tower at the start of any story and find their way without difficulty; it's a simple premise and the stories keep moving forward with cracking good dialogue and playful narration.
Richard Isanove's colouring keeps a uniformity to the series, which is no small feat; Sean Phillips, Luke Ross and Michael Lark each have styles of their own, but Isanove could fool you into thinking the series has only one artist. Special props to Luke Ross, whose storytelling skills are utterly magnificent in a way so few comics today are; in the Little Sisters of Eluria#2, he has one page with 21 panels! That issue contains 180 panels total, twice as many as the average comic book! And he does this for artistic effect, using the smaller panels in #2 to increase the sense of claustrophobia and menace, switching in issue #3 to larger panels (92 total) for a flashback sequence. Give this man more work, please!
ADAPTED FROM: The series of novels by Orson Scott Card. Adapted by Aaron Johnston, Pop Mhan and Giancarlo Caracuzzo.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: In Ender in Exile and Speaker for the Dead, having committed xenocide against the Formic race, Ender seeks redemption; in the prequel Formic Wars, the early days of Earth's war with the Formics is depicted.
MY PRIOR EXPERIENCE: Nil, although my sister always spoke highly of the novels.
WHAT IT'S LIKE: Again, I came into Ender in Exile with no familiarity with the source material or the comics which had come before, yet I was suddenly drawn in mid-story thanks to sharply-defined characters, fine dialogue and an easy-to-grasp storyline. The Formic Wars were difficult to get into because of the larger cast and different setting, but Speaker for the Dead was much more involving. Kudos to Pop Mhan, whose talents have grown since I last recall seeing his art.
ADAPTED FROM: Marvel Comics' own Millie the Model. Rebranded by Andi Watson and Tommy Ohtsuka.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Mill Collins is a struggling young tennis player who takes on a new coach in the hopes of avoiding expulsion from a prestigious academy.
MY PRIOR EXPERIENCE: I've read Millie the Model. Stop judging me! I write handbooks!
WHAT IT'S LIKE: I suppose this occurs in the Marvel Universe, since Millie the Model is Mill's aunt; I doubt making the connection more explicit would have helped this book garner attention, but it's worth noting this is the one comic in the feature bound to turn up in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. It's actually an excellent piece of work! It's clear to see how it was meant to surface around 2002 based on the manga-esque art of Ohtsuka and the lower-case lettering from Russ Wooton; it's also difficult to see it ever finding the teenage girl audience who would most appreciate it. But it's an engaging read, focusing on the dramas of Mill and her coach trying to establish mutual trust. Mill has an adversarial tennis player nemesis from the start of the series, but their big showdown is actually the second-last match of the series - the real drama comes between Mill and her coach during the final match. I've heard tennis comics are popular in Japan and based on 15 Love I can see why.
ADAPTED FROM: The video game series and Eric Nyland's novel the Fall of Reach. Adapted by Brian Reed and Felix Ruiz.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: John-117 is a Spartan II super-soldier trained from childhood to put down insurrection on Earth's colony worlds, but when the extraterrestrial Covenant appear, the Spartans' new job is to ensure humanity's survival.
MY PRIOR EXPERIENCE: I'm actually a huge Halo fan, having played all of the first-person shooter games up to the present; I don't read the novels, however.
WHAT IT'S LIKE: Yet another series which I can't judge based on its strengths as an adaptation! However, based on my overall familiarity with the Halo universe, the Fall of Reach comics do a fine job with John-117's personality (not easy to get across because he doesn't emote) and Ruiz, who I didn't think was well-suited to Marvel's super hero comics, does an excellent job with the spaceships, aliens and weapons, keeping consistency with the source material.
ADAPTED FROM: The series of novels by Edgard Rice Burroughs. Adapted by Roger Langridge and Filipe Andrade.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: John Carter finds himself on the planet Mars, where the indigenous Tharks treat him like a pet; then he discovers there are human-like residents on Mars.
MY PRIOR EXPERIENCE: Nil.
WHAT IT'S LIKE: Andrade is another artist who I'd had some doubts about based on his super hero work, but even though all I've read is the first issue of A Princess of Mars, it's clear his gifts are in science fiction environs. I enjoyed the first issue quite a bit, thanks to some fun dialogue and how the Tharks are portrayed as uninterested in Carter, rather than hostile.
ADAPTED FROM: The series of novels by L. Frank Baum. Adapted by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: Various adventures in the magical land of Oz, including the Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz and Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz.
MY PRIOR EXPERIENCE: I read most of Baum's Oz work when I was in junior high. I read everything the local libraries had in stock, at any rate.
WHAT IT'S LIKE: These are beautiful comic books! Although I would never have imagined Oz under Young's visuals, his designs are so different from what I'm used to that I look forward to each new character introduction; he did a smashing job with my personal favourite, the Very Hungry Tiger. Fun dialogue, fun stories, fun art...what's not to love?
ADAPTED FROM: The series of novels by Stephen King. Adapted by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Mike Perkins.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: After a catastrophic plague reduces Earth's population, various survivors gather together to confront the supernatural horror of the Dark Man.
MY PRIOR EXPERIENCE: Nil.
WHAT IT'S LIKE: I've heard a lot of good things about the Stand, but coming in mid-point I have to say, I think I need to have read the novels to appreciate this material. The cast is bloody huge and the stakes aren't quite clear to me. I don't even get a sense of this series depicting a world where 99% of the population is dead - thanks to the largely rural settings, it seems about as densely populated as the real world. I'm glad to see Perkins sticking with this series for consistency's sake, yet I wonder if it'll hurt his recognition amongst comics fandom when he'd been building a pretty good name for himself on Captain America. Ah, but maybe people will be reading the collected editions of the Stand comics for decades to come.
ADAPTED FROM: The novel A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Repurposed by Jim McCann and David Baldeon.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: As a zombie plague ravages London, Ebenezer Scrooge learns from three spirits how he's been the unwitting carrier of the disease and only he can set the world right.
MY PRIOR EXPERIENCE: I've read A Christmas Carol and experienced various radio/film adaptations.
WHAT IT'S LIKE: I think Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has much to answer for. This book is an odd duck, being a rather faithful adaptation of A Christmas Carol except for how scenes are altered to admit zombies into them. By attempting to adhere to the structure of Dickens' book, it makes for an atypical zombie story...for one thing, the zombies lose!
11. "Ethan Brand" (1851) by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In this tale, a man seeks to learn what the "unpardonable sin" could be. Tackling the problem as an experiment, he makes test subjects of several people, deceiving them into committing murder and other terrible acts, but in each case he can see how they could be forgiven. The ultimate revelation of his actions is this: intentionally drawing others into evil is the unpardonable sin.
"Ethan Brand" can be found in Twice-Told Tales. You can read the text online here.
12. "A Terrible Night" (1856) by Fitz-James O'Brien. In this disturbing tale, two men go hunting in the woods somewhere in northern Canada. After becoming lost they chance upon a cabin and the reclusive but proud inhabitant allows them to spend the night. However, the two begin to fear that their host has plans to rob and kill them, so they sleep in shifts to keep an eye on him. The ultimate horror of the evening is much worse than they could have imagined.
"A Terrible Night" can be read online here.
13. "The Phantom Coach" (1864) by Amelia B. Edwards. I first encountered this story in a filmstrip back in junior high school and it left quite a mark upon me; bereft of the film's illustrations, I don't think it's as terrifying, but Edwards still weaves what is to my mind the best of the "phantom coach" style of tales, of which there were many in the 19th century (her colleague Dickens wrote a couple). In this tale, a man lost in the snow accepts a lift from a mysterious coach. There's something not quite right about his fellow passengers...
"The Phantom Coach" can be found in Classic & Victorian Ghost Stories. You can read the text online here.
14. "The Trial for Murder" (1865) by Charles Dickens. In this story, a juror finds himself strangely compelled by the case he's been made to sit in on. He never knew the victim, he does not know the defendant. How is it that he seems possessed of the full details of the crime and is assured of the defendant's guilt? And is there really a 13th juror?
"The Trial for Murder" can read online here.
15. "The Signal-Man" (1866) by Charles Dickens. This eerie story relates the plight of a railway line signal-man who has premonitions of disaster and lives in perpetual fear that his premonitions will come true; the story's protagonist tries to convince him that his fears are groundless, yet he unwittingly has a part to play in the man's future.
"The Signal-Man" can be found in Three Ghost Stories. You can read the text online here.
16. "Green Tea" (1872) by Sheridan Le Fanu. Le Fanu is not a well-known name but he's well-regarded by those who know him and stories like "Green Tea" exhibit the reason why. It's a psychological ghost story written in an open, conversational style that may even make you laugh...until the story's phantom monkey appears.
"Green Tea" can be found in Green Tea and Other Strange Tales. You can read the text online here.
17. "Sire de Maletroit's Door" (1877) by Robert Louis Stevenson. In this story, a young cavalier fleeing from his enemies steps inside an open door; he soon has cause to regret this action when he finds himself in the home of a wealthy man determined to find the person who impregnated his daughter. As a criminal, the cavalier cannnot expose his motivation without incriminating himself and so is given a choice: marry his daughter or die.
"Sire de Maletroit's Door" can be found in New Arabian Nights. You can read the text online here.
18. "The Suicide Club" (1878) by Robert Louis Stevenson. Here's where I'm fudging the definition of "short story" just a little. "The Suicide Club" is more properly a novella or even a mini-anthology; it is essentially three short stories which together tell one great story. However, it's mainly the first of these stories which I'm enamored with - "The Young Man With the Cream Tarts." It's this part of the story which is really about the titular Suicide Club. In it, a young prince out to enjoy himself in secrecy joins a club where suicidal people unable to kill themselves play cards every night to choose from amongst their ranks a killer and a victim. The prince's problems really begin when he is chosen to be a victim! This was a story I first encountered on the radio show Escape, but protagonist Prince Florizel turned up in a few more of Stevenson's works.
"The Suicide Club" can be found in New Arabian Nights. You can read the text online here.
19. "A Ruse" (1882) by Guy de Maupassant. Really, this is an awful, tasteless, cynical and terrible story. And yet, it's told with such zest and audacity that I do rather like it. A physician relates a story about an evening where he was called to aid a married woman whose lover had unexpectedly died. He must contrive a means to get the body out of her home before her husband returns. It's all a build-up to an awful punchline, but so far as cynical humour goes, this is one of Maupassant's best.
"A Ruse" can be found in The Complete Works of Guy de Maupassant. You can read the text online here.
20. "Markheim" (1885) by Robert Louis Stevenson. This is a great crime story telling the desperate actions of a killer trying to escape the scene of the crime but plagued by self-doubts and fears of capture. His own conscience stirs against him as he comes closer and closer to discovery.
"Markheim" can be found in Three Tales. You can read the text online here.
