For a network that has so staunchly committed itself to quantity over quality, Netflix really surprised with the Umbrella Academy. They just took a random comic series and turned it into a superlative tv show, ok to be fair season one is superlative, season two not quite, but still…most impressive indeed. It might have made the series famous enough to merit spinoffs. Certainly made the comic famous enough for our library system to finally acquire some digital copies. And because this book was the first one available and being a prequel required nothing going in, I downloaded it immediately. After all, Klaus is easily one of the best characters on the show. And this graphic novel is all about Klaus, who doesn’t really look like the actor who plays him and indeed does look closer to something dead, ghostly pale and permanently floating around barefoot.
The story takes place a decade prior to the events of Apocalypse Suite (tv show season one) and features Klaus age 18 freshly kicked out of the academy, who ends up in Tinseltown of all places entangled with vampires, actors and other kinds of monsters. The story is somewhat wacky (or maybe just comparing to the show’s flow), but the art is fun and I mean, what sort of a person resists a story about a lovelorn vampire chimp. Not this reader. The foreword, appropriately and affectionately wacky, is provided by the actor who plays Klaus. Excellent actor…stylistically interesting writer. So yeah, overall a quick entertaining read. Different from the show, but should appeal to the show’s fans who are able and willing to appreciate alternative perspectives. This may be one of those unicorn occurrences of the show being superior to the source material. A very infrequent thing indeed. But further reading is required to come to any definitive conclusions.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
December 2023
Categories |