Friday, November 30, 2012

Alice in Wonderland by Raven Gregory, Robert Gill, and Jason Embury

Alice in Wonderland by Raven Gregory, Robert Gill, and Jason Embury

Completion Date: November 25, 2012
Reason for Reading: Received a copy through Netgalley.
The one thing known is that her time spent in a world full of insanity left her a broken adult. However, her courageous will to survive is what ultimately saved humanity. Now the story of Alice's visit into Wonderland is fully revealed and the truth of the terror will be told in full From Raven Gregory, Ralph Tedesco, and Joe Brusha, the minds behind Grimm Fairy Tales and Return To Wonderland, comes the series that Zenescope fans have been waiting for Follow Zenescope back down the rabbit hole and discover a world of madness like you've never seen before.
Well... I tend to get the emails about graphic novels on Netgalley and be adventurous. I was intrigued by this retelling of Alice in Wonderland. I have to say, the art is amazing. I was floored by it throughout. The problem is that the female characters wear so little clothing. And, just the female characters. The men were mostly all covered up for the most part. I think they were trying to make this a 'riskier' Alice, but, well... I think it is one thing to be scantily clad in a book. It is another thing to see panel after panel of half naked women. I have decided I am a bit of a prude... But generally, I am not... I was really interested in this hard-ass Alice and the other compelling female characters that she interacts with. It was a different take on the Alice story for sure. Maybe the art was too well done?

As to the story itself, it wasn't terrible. I had a few confused moments, but by the end I knew what was going on. It is a very dark retelling of a classic novel. I think I might like the idea behind it much more than the innocent, yet not so innocent, version that Carroll originally released. The characters were creepy and with the excellent drawing really jumped off the page. I wonder if I hadn't spent the whole comic wondering where their clothes were if I might have enjoyed this more. I mean, there is a big battle and Alice wears less clothes than she has all along. And then in one of the plot events she has to lose all her clothing but her more intimate ones. I didn't understand why other than to have her wear less clothing.

Frankly, the artist was amazing, but you were distracted by the lack of clothing. And, the story wasn't quite good enough to make up for it. If the story was amazing, I could have dealt with the revealing clothing at every turn and by every woman. Also, don't judge this book by the cover. Alice is actually wearing more clothes in that picture than in the entire comic. So, yes, a disappointing read. It has a great idea, but the writing doesn't match its potential. I think if I wasn't amazed by the artists skill this would have been a DNF for me. I guess I also hoped it would get better.

I am basically more interested in if the artist has done other comics with more clothing than anything else.

4 comments:

  1. LOL! I can't help but laugh at the obvious distractions the lack of clothing on Alice were for you. To be fair, based on the cover art, thigh-highs and tight, low-cut bodices are not meant to entice female readers. At. All. Which is a shame really because I am not certain how many men are actually interested in the Alice in Wonderland story and would therefore be interested in a retelling of it. Granted, with scantily-clad women as the main focus, I imagine some men won't care what they read.

    It does sound interesting. I wonder what your reaction would have been had there been no art and the story was based on the dialogue and other words alone.

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  2. I raise my eyebrows at the cover alone, and I don't think of myself as a prude at all. I just have little patience for the gender disparity you mention :\

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  3. I didn't request this because of the cover so I'm really not surprised at your review. Ugh! I love it when there's a new twist to classic tales but it's always better to gear stories to everyone not just a certain gender. :-(

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  4. Holy boobage on Alice! @_@

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