Murder Mysteries review

[cellia]

P. Craig Russell is one of the few comic artists I will buy anything he does. So when I saw the graphic novel Murder Mysteries where he adapts a short story by Neil Gaiman, I was all psyched. But, uh, I found it very underwhelming and annoying.

Comments

[amanuensis1]

The first time I read that story--it was the text, not the illustrated version--I was so dense I completely missed that the protagonist must have murdered his former lover. I didn't get it until I read the illustrated version or heard the audio dramatization, can't remember which I did first.

The audio version does make the ending seem more like...the protagonist is in hell, or purgatory, or something. I kind of like that the end is left vague.

[cellia]

lol. But, yes, some review comments mentioned that there are many more "clues" in the comic--just the nature of the medium.

Now that I look at it again, the ending in the comic-version is a little vague too, but since the story opened with the protagonist 10 years later and talking about his "gift" of a life with his wife/kids/vocation, I didn't consider it anything but an artistic parallel to the angel in his waiting-cell. The whole thing being an extended flashback robbed his fate of a lot of dramatic tension for me. Hmm. This might be a piece where less is more. As text it might have been more one of those "clever puzzle" short stories.

I'll probably read the orig story one day since that book is in my to-read pile, though.