I’ve never read the original Moby Dick by
Herman Melville, and I’m not sure whether that is a disadvantage
in reviewing this comic book adaptation. To be honest it’s not
a novel I was planning to read anyway. I vaguely remember once
listening to a radio adaptation of the novel, but that was over
twenty years ago, and it didn’t inspire me to read the novel then.
To be honest again, although I know that Moby Dick is meant
to be one of the highlights of American literature, I was never
really interested in tales of the high seas or the relentless
doomed pursuit of a whale.

It would be a mark of a great adaptation that it changed my mind
about wanting to read the original novel. Will Eisner’s adaptation
is fun and fast (just 30 pages) and it makes it into a story for
young children. The drawing is crude, but that’s not much of a
criticism for a comic book format. More disappointing is that
the format of the art is so uninspired. The book jacket calls
Will Eisner “one of comic art’s giants” and compared
him to other artists such as Marvel comic’s Jack Kirby. But what
we get here is 6 frames per page, page after page, of caricatured
drawing. If there’s any psychological subtlety in the novel, it
doesn’t get communicated to the pages of this adaptation.

I think I’d like it more if this adaptation actually came in a
comic book, with color ink that rubs off on your fingers and advertisements
at the back for X-ray spectacles. As it is, the glossy pages and
high quality printing seem out of place here. However, I don’t
want to be too sour about this book. The story of the futile chase
of a giant whale is still more interesting than a good many Hollywood
movies or network TV dramas. It might be fun to sit down with
a child for an hour and read this story together.

© 2001 Christian Perring

This review first appeared online Sept 1, 2001

Categories: Fiction