Pendragon Book One: The Merchant of Death
By D.J. MacHale
Adapted and Illustrated by Carla Speed McNeil
Aladdin Paperbacks, 2008
By Miles Baker
As librarians all over the continent try to find books that will bring boys back to reading, the temptation for book publishers to adapt novels into graphic novels must be considerable. Especially when you have an exciting fantasy series just dying for more readers and a film adaptation, like the Pendragon series.
The series is about Bobby Pendragon, a regular jock kid from Connecticut who is dragged into an inter-dimensional war by his uncle. Bobby becomes a Traveler, trying to save worlds from the evil shape-shifting Saint Dane. To date, there are nine published books in the series, and, according to Wikipedia, it has sold pretty well.
So here it is. The graphic adaptation of the first book. How is it? Okay.
McNeil is a fantastic cartoonist, and an excellent figure drawer. Every face is very different, and everyone is pretty teen-hot. So that’s enjoyable. My only problem, and this is in part a taste thing, is that the backgrounds are sparse and occasionally lazy-looking. I can see why McNiel would do this. She wants to draw your attention to her excellent characters and away from her backgrounds. And, story-wise, characters are usually more important than setting. The problem with that is, we’re in this strange land that I’m supposed to care about as a reader, and I don’t because it’s represented by squiggly lines. She had the chance to render a beautiful, fantasy landscape — magical landscapes that I’m sure many readers are longing for — yet establishing shots are scarce to non-existent. I think three pages would have addressed this problem, too: establishing shots of important locations would give the reader an idea of their size, scope, and significance.
My other major problems with the book come from the story structure. The bulk of the story is told through letters written by Bobby to his friends on regular Earth. Not a bad idea, but whenever Bobby is in any kind of danger, you know he’s going to be fine because he lived to write the letter. This robs me of any kind of excitement during the action scenes. The other issue is that the last half of the book has a bit of a pacing problem – it’s very fast and could have used a little more breathing room.
However, in reading the plot synopsis for book nine at the back of the book, I know that the plot gets more interesting as it goes. If you have the patience to stick with it, it sounds like adult readers will get a kick out of Pendragon. Or if you’re looking to get your kid sibling/cousin/student something to read now that Harry Potter is done, you probably can’t go too wrong with Pendragon.
I bet its gonna be just as good as the other! :)