Classics Illustrated: The Island of Dr. Moreau

I’ve always felt a special connection to The Island of Dr. Moreau, at least ever since I picked up a movie tie-in paperback when I was a kid (I mean the 1977 Burt Lancaster-Michael York movie, not the 1996 Marlon Brando-Val Kilmer one). I don’t know how many times I’ve read Wells’s novel, but this was my second time through the Classics Illustrated adaptation, with text by Steven Grant and art by Eric Vincent. I recall not being impressed with it my first time around, but on this re-read I thought it held up slightly better. Even though I had to groan at the back cover, which proclaims: “Edward Prendick is . . . . LOST . . . and trapped on the Island of Dr. Moreau – the one island you want to be voted off of!” So there’s two timely references to American television that I don’t think will age as well as Wells’s book has.

I imagine it must be a difficult job cutting any novel down to less than a hundred pages of comic, so I don’t want to complain too much about what Grant did. I think he kept the story intact enough to make sense without leaving much of importance out. But zooming in a bit, I thought the dialogue was often quite choppy, with the flow of various scenes interrupted with breaks that had me thinking a page was missing or a cell had been dropped out of sequence somehow. It’s herky-jerky in several places and I thought that even though it was a tough assignment more could have been done to smooth things out. I’d also point out that changing Arica to Africa is a typo. Montgomery does not say he’s “out of Africa” but “out of Arica,” Arica being a port in northern Chile. And at least one point I wasn’t sure how closely Grant and Vincent were working together, as we never see the dead rabbit that Montgomery and Prendick discover and which provides proof that the Beast Men are reverting back to their carnivorous origins. The two men talk about it, but what they’re talking about is never shown and if you haven’t read the book I think you’d have a hard time understanding what is going on.

I liked the art, at least once it got beyond the cliché of Moreau and Montgomery decked out in their best colonial whites. Vincent has a distinct style and the faces are particularly memorable, with Prendick dissolving into a sweaty, stubbly anguish that made me think of Robert Crumb and Moreau’s moustache and sideburns making him seem like King of the Beast Men. I also felt the final panel nailed the ending, highlighting the now clean-shaven Prendick’s alienation from the urban, civilized world he has returned to. This is the key point in the novel, close akin to Marlow’s recognition at the end of Heart of Darkness that London is not just one of the dark places in the world but the darkness’s beating heart. Of course it’s an idea that’s presented in stronger terms in the novel, but enough of the conclusion is kept intact here to make it a clear enough takeaway.

Graphicalex