Sherlock Holmes Mysteries Volume 2 (Sherlock Holmes Mysteries)

Rating:
Summary: Dip into Gaslight
Review: Martin Powell is one of the greatest novelists alive, even if the twin peaks of his achievement are based on the novels of other men (Bram Stoker and H G Wells), not to mention the entire corpus of Sherlock Holmes stories. He is able to take the elements that made Dracula or The Invisible Man so memorable, and to isolate them, then shake them up in a box with the lore of the man from Baker Street, and the graphic novel was never the same again.

I prefer "Scarlet in Gaslight" to "A Case of Blind Fear," but probably only because the setup of Dracula is so much more familiar to me than the Wells novel, and thus I don't have to search the far corners of my brain to compare Powell's innovations to the UR-text he's working from. But in truth, A CASE OF BLIND FEAR is actually more original and startling than SCARLET in many ways, foregrounding the wealth of invention Powell has at his fingertips.

The reproduction of the comic panels is another matter however, and it is here that the book falls down and Moonstone Books should rethink their policy. The book is simply too small and in some cases you can hardly read the dialogue without a magnnifying glass--just like Sherlock Holmes. But others will have sharper eyes than I, and I guarantee you'll find this book well worth the investment you make. "The hunt is afoot!"