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Look what I found in a grocery store, of all places. There were a few
books with the word Graphic Novel in big letters on the cover. This
being done by Carla Speed McNeil got my money. Carla does the self
published series called Finder and it's really great, so I figured I'd
give this a go.
Pendragon is a series of adventure books for children. To sum up the
premise very quickly, it's Stargate but with teenagers and a mentor.
There is much more to it, but the gist is a teenager goes through a
portal to another world and gets involved with their problems. There are
other people that do this too, but rather than try to help worlds they
attempt to twist them for their own purposes. The good guys try to stop
the bad guys.
The story was decent, meant for ages 10 and up. Being older and having
read/seen many stories about people going to other 'worlds,' this wasn't
all that special to me. For somebody younger I'm sure they enjoyed it.
The cover boasts that Pendragon is a New York Times #1 best seller, so
it's obviously successful. That said, I felt the book was very by the
numbers. The characters were very one note and not compelling.
Carla kept the layouts basic and easy to read. Most pages have 5-6
panels, less in certain points when the story hits major peaks.
Considering this is to appeal to readers of the Pendragon series and
likely not regular comic readers, this was the best choice to make for
presenting the story. Flipping through, I couldn't help but notice there
is a lot of upper body shots, people being shown from the chest up. I
suppose that is a problem when adapting a prose novel to comics is how
much the novel is focused on dialog.
Anyways, I can't blame Carla for any of this. There was a book that
needed to be adapted for those readers and she did that well. I give
this a 2.5 out of 5 stars. I may recommend this to young kids and fans
of the Pendragon series. But long time comic readers (like myself)
should pass.
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