InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Pete. Do you love me?"

suzene (suzene) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-03-24 16:27:00

Entry tags:

publisher: marvel comics, title: pride and prejudice

Literary fail.
I was scrolling back through the last couple weeks of posts on The Beat, saw this mentioned, and -- after boggling a bit -- remembered that some members of the old comm had been interested in the upcoming Marvel adaptation of 'Pride and Prejudice'.

Innit cute? It's another wee Greg Land wanna be!

Link to Newsarma's blub for the adaptation here, with some interior pages. It's not much of an improvement.

(Post a new comment)

	mullon 2009-03-24 06:43 pm UTC (link)
	I can't help but suspect that no one has actually read Pride and Prejudice, and all the hype I've heard from people looking forward is just everyone trying to sound intellectual. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	toasty_fresh 2009-03-24 06:52 pm UTC (link)
	I agree. Most people I know (including myself) who've read the book didn't even like it . . . (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	darklorelei 2009-03-24 06:54 pm UTC (link)
	I like it, but not for the A plot. I like it for the social commentary. The economic stuff is just really interesting. But I definitely agree. People are all excited, and it just doesn't look good. I think everyone is all charmed by the first cover (which really is kind of inspired). (Reply to this) (Parent)

	gargoylekitty 2009-03-24 07:17 pm UTC (link)
	Motto. While it wasn't the worse book I've ever read, it definitely isn't worth the hype. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	darklorelei 2009-03-24 07:22 pm UTC (link)
	But Colin Firth is so dreamy! sigh I blame you, Beeb. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	icon_uk 2009-03-24 07:34 pm UTC (link)
	I'm trying to get through it but, worthy though it is, I keep putting it to one side to read something more enjoyable. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	mullon 2009-03-24 11:07 pm UTC (link)
	I would argue that if it is not something enjoyable enough that you have to put it down for something else, then it is not worthy. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	ceru 2009-03-25 10:43 am UTC (link)
	I'd argue that it's not the book for the person who isn't enjoying it, not that it isn't worthy. (Reply to this) (Parent)

ceru
2009-03-25 10:40 am UTC (link)

That's the exact opposite of my experience--everybody I know who's read it loves it madly, myself included. I suppose it's a bit of a self-selected group, since I generally only talk about books with my friends, and our tastes overlap, but we don't agree on everything...

Austen's style is not accessible to everybody, but if you can handle prose that defaults to grammatically complex sentences, she's brilliant and funny. And, although to see Pride and Prejudice only as a romance is to miss much of what makes Austen's work a classic, a work of enduring value over time, it's romantic as hell.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	toasty_fresh 2009-03-25 12:34 pm UTC (link)
	It's definitely one of those books that people tend to either like or dislike. I read a lot of dense stuff like Austen's work, but the thing that really turned me off of P&P were her characters, not the style. I just never found myself connecting with Elizabeth, and I generally have a hard time liking a book if I can't identify with the main character. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	schmevil 2009-03-24 08:14 pm UTC (link)
	Not so. Austin is still widely read! (Reply to this) (Parent)

kaetepixie
2009-03-24 08:29 pm UTC (link)

Pride and Prejudice is awesome. The language is a little dated, but there's nothing super "intellectual" about it. It's a straight forward romance. Other than a tendency towards so many names that it can get confusing if you don't know the story, it's pretty simple.

Besides, it's been turned into movies and miniseries many, many times. So you can love the story without ever having cracked a book.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	lightbrigade 2009-03-24 09:26 pm UTC (link)
	It sounds too good to be true, but I bet a bunch of S_Ders have indeed read/tried to read/watch the adaptations. I've got two copies myself, which I occasionally reread so I can memorise some Austen snark and be snotty to my supervisor at work. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	wheresmything 2009-03-25 12:40 am UTC (link)
	I read it in 10th grade not for school, but because all my friends were pseudo-intellectual types copying their sisters, so I figured why not? It was okay. It wasn't my mother's stash of 1970s/1980s Harlequins, but then, nothing will ever live up to those. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	toasty_fresh 2009-03-24 06:57 pm UTC (link)
	What is up with Mary's hair? I mean, I could complain about the other four's being anachronistic, but Mary's looks like the artist got it off the cover of some awful 80s pop band . . . (Reply to this)

	foxhack 2009-03-24 06:58 pm UTC (link)
	o_O Buh... buh... (Reply to this)

	gargoylekitty 2009-03-24 07:00 pm UTC (link)
	I like how not one of them really look like they're in the same scene as the others. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-03-24 07:36 pm UTC (link)
	They used Cameraobscurashop for Windows 1805 (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jlroberson 2009-03-24 07:00 pm UTC (link)
	Photos! Cut and paste. Outline. Color. Now blur and pray no one will notice you did almost no drawing. This is from Marvel? Marvel who, just as I'd put together a sample last week, announced they're not taking open submissions anymore? No, seriously, this is from them? Whatever. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	foxhack 2009-03-24 08:09 pm UTC (link)
	Well, they keep hiring Greg Land, so that should tell you something. I often wonder if they've got something on Joey Q. As much as I dislike his... business practices... there's no reason for him to hire such crap "artists". Any editor should be able to see the danger they bring (in regards to tracing photos without permission.) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	suzene 2009-03-24 08:26 pm UTC (link)
	Lydia is really something like a miracle of fail. She has all the components of a distressed expression -- clasped hands, upturned eyes, ~~blow-up doll mouth~~ and is in the middle of an exclamation, but there's no actual emotion there. Amazing. (Reply to this) (Parent)

jlroberson
2009-03-25 03:49 am UTC (link)

Marvel publishes a bunch of really, really talented artists, Steve Epting being one of my own favorites. Land baffles me. He seems like a cover guy who blundered into interiors. I say this because every panel he draws is basically cover composition, and this is one reason why his work fails. He's not telling stories. If not for all the finish, I doubt you could tell his compositions from, say, Liefeld in the early 90s.

This is an attempt to be charitable in thinking he puts that much thought into it to be able to call it composition. Endless shots of girls squinting with their mouths open is what I think of when I think of his work. That and for some reason, the words "Dolce & Cabbbana." That began the first time I saw his Johnny Storm.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	skywaterblue 2009-03-24 08:01 pm UTC (link)
	I was actually looking forward to this to help me FINISH the damn book, but ugh. Now I can't see myself reading this. (Reply to this)

	sandoz_iscariot 2009-03-24 08:10 pm UTC (link)
	Well, looks like it's just Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for me. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	newnumber6 2009-03-24 08:28 pm UTC (link)
	Haha, me too. They managed to add the one thing that could get me to read Pride and Prejudice, add zombies. I'm supposed to be getting a free copy of it, too, should be relatively soon. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	leikomgwtfbbq 2009-03-25 12:15 pm UTC (link)
	Shit, I'd actually read Pride and Prejudice if it had zombies roaming around. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	darklorelei 2009-03-25 10:56 pm UTC (link)
	Wait, you know that book is really coming out, right? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	leikomgwtfbbq 2009-03-26 02:14 pm UTC (link)
	Are you serious? That's awesome. I hope this starts a trend. Then I'd read a lot more literature from around that era. XP (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	My good deed for the day! darklorelei 2009-03-26 03:22 pm UTC (link)
	Look upon the awesome! I already preordered it. (Reply to this) (Parent)

kaetepixie
2009-03-24 08:25 pm UTC (link)

I was so excited for this comic. I even had grand plans that it could be used as crossover material to bring in friends and family who weren't "comic" readers but did love Jane Austen.

Look at it. Just look. I can't believe they used a Greg Land clone (har) in a comic that is supposed to appeal to GIRLS. They're going to take one look at the porn faces and slam it shut, with their belief that comics are out of touch and sexist totally verified.

Even the hair is insulting. There's dozens of DVDs directly in that time period. I can pop into Best Buy and get a collection of ten miniseries for $50. Hell, you could probably steal them off the internet if the artist was that lazy. Why not use THOSE for photo references?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	darklorelei 2009-03-24 08:59 pm UTC (link)
	Some of the other previews I've seen look a LOT like their 2005 movie counterparts. Pretty sure Darcy was traced from MacFadyen. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	lightbrigade 2009-03-24 09:23 pm UTC (link)
	Even the hair is insulting. Seriously. That's never a proper period piece hairstyle much less Regency, that's pornstar hair! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	newnumber6 2009-03-24 08:26 pm UTC (link)
	I'd rather they did an adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". (Reply to this)

	aaron_bourque 2009-03-24 09:09 pm UTC (link)
	Their facial expressions almost match their dialogue. That . . . worries? me. Fills me with contempt? Impresses me? I'm not sure. (Reply to this)

ceru
2009-03-24 09:24 pm UTC (link)

MARVEL. MARVEL, I'M TALKING TO YOU.

NO.

STOP.

THIS IS IN FACT, QUITE BAD.

AGAIN, I SAY STOP. STOP STOP STOP STOP.

I love comics adaptations of older literary works. I don't think I could hope to list all the literary adaptations I have read in comics form--I mean, the backstock of the Graphics Classics alone would take me an hour to type up, and then I'd have to hunt down all the random treatments of Dracula and Frankenstein and the Inugami Clan and all the books and comics I read as a child that I can remember, but never knew the names of. I love reading adaptations, even when they don't do justice to the original.

I say with no reservation at all that this panel is, bar none, the worst panel from a comics adaptation of a literary work I've ever seen. You know why? Because it's the product of a company that no longer knows how to make good narrative comics art, and doesn't care. It's embarrassing.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	suzene 2009-03-24 09:45 pm UTC (link)
	I speak not in defense of Marvel itself, but of Eric Shanower, for whom I have the crazy fan-love -- the Wizard of Oz adaptation he and Skottie Young are putting out is fantastic. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	kamino_neko 2009-03-25 03:21 am UTC (link)
	Yes it is...Despite the excessive use of captions taken straight from Baum's rather...stiff text. And the fact I'm not a huge Oz fan. (Reply to this) (Parent)

jlroberson
2009-03-25 03:58 am UTC (link)

That was the overwhelming feeling I had looking at this, and other pages. The word "generic" kept occurring to me. Also "indifferent." And the thought that the artist had never even read the book and relied on their dim memories of something they saw a bit of on MASTERPIECE THEATRE once. It's like an issue of ROCK & ROLL COMICS done in airbrush.

The hair. Each one. Very wrong. Did the artist just, like, use the internet and find hair of the period? No. He just gave them arbitrary hairstyles only meant to tag the characters. My god, if you're going to basically digitally "ink" photos, there are plenty that would have been accurate, even film stills.

Who is this meant for? It'll anger fans of the book--and Jane Austen fans believe in torture before execution--and baffle Marvel's usual readers. And has NO crossover appeal as drawn here. It has no life in it.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	This. jazzypom 2009-03-26 04:53 am UTC (link)
	Hello! Good to see you around. I remember enjoying your insights re: Tony Stark and Steve Rogers on scans_daily. I'm only sorry that I didn't save them in my google docs before PAD went mental. Gah. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	dejadrew 2009-03-25 12:00 am UTC (link)
	Oh, lord. Two minutes on google, Petrus. Two. Minutes. (Reply to this)

	wheresmything 2009-03-25 12:49 am UTC (link)
	It is a testament to the absurdity of the art that I read that panel twice and didn't grasp that it wasn't a modern retelling. That hair is a little... casual. Mary looks like a hair metal frontman. The best thing about P&P is the BBC miniseries. Specifically, Darcy looking out windows during every scene, and the line "Damn tedious waste of an evening" (Reply to this)

skitty_kat
2009-03-25 02:57 am UTC (link)

*feels masochistic and goes to see the other preview pages*

Oh God. What is up with Bingley's face as he dances with Jane? Everyone has these evil grins. What do they know that we don't?
And that is not Darcy. Everyone knows Colin Firth is Darcy. It's not like he's ever played another role.

Does this artist inherit Land's porn mags once he's done with them? If he can unstick the pages, he can trace the faces.

(Reply to this)

	jlroberson 2009-03-25 03:52 am UTC (link)
	Hey! Know what would have been really cool? If the interior looked anything like the cover art. THAT is nice. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	darklorelei 2009-03-25 07:45 am UTC (link)
	I'm convinced that's why like...90% of the people who are excited about it are buying it. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2009-03-25 11:36 am UTC (link)
	NNnnnnghhaughhhh!! I don't even like Pride and Prejudice, and this makes me want to punch stuff. Because I DO like comics! COMICS DESERVE BETTER. I just got my sister reading comics, and she owns every single version of P&P ever, and I could have given her this to cement the deal. BUT NO. Noooo. :[ Honestly, Marvel, why? -greenmask.. (Reply to this)

	Yuck. jazzypom 2009-03-26 04:55 am UTC (link)
	Just... yuck. Why Marvel? (Reply to this)