“Come In! And Know Me Better, Man!" | A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (2008)

Classical Comics' version by Sean Michael Wilson and Mike Collins is a long graphic novel with plenty of pages to devote to each scene. Where the earlier two comics give it at most a couple, here it gets four.

The first page deals with Scrooge's waking up at the stroke of 1:00 am and pulling back his curtains in anticipation of the next ghost. The second builds tension as Scrooge waits, then sees the light under the door to the next room, then goes to open the door where he's flooded with light.

The third page is a splash with the introduction of the Ghost of Christmas Present. The banquet is confined to a table, so it doesn't cover every square foot of space, but the table is huge and the lay out of food is lavish. We can't really see what the Ghost is sitting on, but he's got one, giant foot resting on a bunch of kegs. There's also festive garland everywhere. It's an impressive page.

The Ghost is absolutely giant and has the cornucopia torch, looking more in this version the way I usually imagine it than the two-handed affair of Marvel's Ghost. He's got the green robe with the white fur, the big bare chest and shoeless feet, and his hair is long and brown. And though we won't get a good look until the Ghost and Scrooge hit the streets, the Ghost is also wearing the scabbard without a sword (though there's not enough detail to show that it's rusted). The only thing missing from Dickens' description are the icicles on the holly crown, so this is the most accurate representation of the Ghost so far.

The fourth page has the bulk of Scrooge and the Ghost's conversation before leaving the house. This comic has shown some willingness to change in Scrooge that started during Marley's visit and continued into Christmas Past's, so it's fitting that Scrooge recites the line from Dickens about learning a lesson the previous night that's still working on him at present. And the Ghost's inviting Scrooge to touch his robe is a perfect way to end the page before moving to the street for next year's scene.

“Another Idol Has Displaced Me” | A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (2008)

Classical Comics' version by Sean Michael Wilson and Mike Collins gives seven pages to this year's scene; most of them on the first half where Belle and Scrooge break up. All of the flashback visions in Wilson and Collins' adaptation have been in sepia tone, so it's impossible to tell the exact color of Belle's dress, but it does seem to be lightly colored for a mourning dress. And there's no other mention of her parents' having recently died, which is appropriate since the adaptation is sticking as close as it can to Dickens' dialogue. 

Dickens gave the break-up scene a lot of language and that's why it gets so many pages here. I appreciate that Wilson and Collins didn't try to cram it all into a few panels, but let it breathe over a few pages, even if there's not a lot of visual excitement with just the two characters talking. Belle is very pretty though and Young Scrooge is handsome and not completely twisted by greed and cynicism yet. But Belle has seen the warning signs (she doesn't mention any specific thing that he's done) and is cutting off the relationship before Scrooge gets worse. She's visibly upset (they both are, really) and there are a lot of tears before it's finished.

Neither Young nor Old Scrooge cries, nor does the Ghost have to physically restrain Old Scrooge for the next vision, but Scrooge does protest about seeing more. Without even knowing what's coming, he's done with all of this. Or wants to be.

Belle ends up with a large, lively family, if not quite as enormous and out of control as Dickens gave me the impression of. There's her oldest daughter and then four younger kids: the oldest of which are girls and the youngest are boys. When Dad comes home with presents (accompanied by a porter, as in Dickens), the younger children rush him and there are cheers and laughter all around.

This scene takes a couple of pages before Scrooge again demands to be removed. As he grabs the Spirit's extinguisher cap, there's a halo of other faces around the Spirit's. It's a small panel and the art is washed out somewhat by a bright light effect in the coloring, but I think these other faces are Schoolboy Scrooge, Apprentice Scrooge, Fan, Fezziwig, and Belle. Even if I'm not completely right about that though, it's nice to see this detail from the book make it into an adaptation.

The rest of the page has Scrooge snuffing out the Spirit with the cap and then alone in a dark room with a small circle of light spilling out from beneath the cap. That last panel is nice and dramatic with Scrooge drawn very small and surrounded by lots of black space. When we turn the page, he'll be asleep on the floor of his room.

“Why, It’s Old Fezziwig!” | A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (2008)

The Fezziwig scene gets five pages in Classical Comics' version by Sean Michael Wilson and Mike Collins, so there are a lot of details included that were missing from Classics Illustrated and Marvel's version. The first panel inside the warehouse has Scrooge and the Ghost looking up at Fezziwig from the floor below, so his desk is pretty high up there. And then later we see Fezziwig hopping down from it. He's wearing a wig, but it's not a Welsh wig and it's not powdered white either. It does look old-fashioned though. And Fezziwig is pleasantly plump.

Young Scrooge and Dick Wilkins look like preteens in this version, which isn't something I'd considered as a possibility. They're apprentices, so it makes sense; I'm just used to so many versions introducing Belle as a love interest at this point, so Scrooge is usually at romancing age: In his late teens or early twenties.

Scrooge refers to Dick as "poor Dick" and follows up with a "dear, dear," which is right out of Dickens. I didn't call attention to it when I reviewed Dickens' text, but "poor Dick" makes it sound like maybe something bad happened to young Mr Wilkins. Hard times or an untimely death? I don't think we ever find out, but Scrooge clearly feels sorry for his former friend. He also mentions that Dick "was very much attached to me," implying that maybe Scrooge didn't reciprocate Dick's attachment or appreciate the boy as much as Scrooge now feels he should have. It's another sign of growth, which is characteristic of Wilson and Collins' version. Their Scrooge is well on his way to becoming a better person.

Fezziwig calls for the boys to help close up the shop and clear away furniture for the party. And there's a panel showing them putting up the removable shutters. Another smaller panel has Young Scrooge sweeping up as Dick carries away a chair. And then the guests arrive.

There's a page-and-a-half dedicated just to dancing and fiddling and looking at food. The fiddler is never explicitly shown sitting at Fezziwig's desk, but there are a couple of close-up panels where he stops to mop his brow and then starts fiddling again, and behind him you can see the same bookshelf that was behind Fezziwig when he was at the desk. I like the attention to detail. The fiddler could have been stationed anywhere the way the panels are framed, but clearly Wilson and Collins are working to be as faithful as possible.

The party itself has no dialogue (except for some general merrymaking sound effects: "hurrah!" "whoop!" "hoho!" etc.) or even narrative text, so if you're not familiar with the story you don't know who everyone is. I spotted at least a couple of Fezziwig's daughters, but I didn't see any of their suitors and there's no way you'd know that any of the guests are people who've been marginalized by the rest of society. These just seem to be Fezziwig's friends and family.

Young Scrooge does have a dance partner in one panel, but she's not named and her hair appears to be a different shade from Belle's, once Belle appears in the following scene. I imagine that Scrooge's dance partner is just someone at the party - maybe even one of Fezziwig's daughters - and not someone he has a particular attachment to.

The narrative text reappears after the party to explain what Old Scrooge has been feeling during all of this (using Dickens' words, of course). And it fits with the expressions we've seen on Scrooge during the scene. He's wide-eyed and smiling; thoroughly taken in by the whole experience. And though there's no scene of Young Scrooge and Dick praising Fezziwig after the party, Old Scrooge of course gets to defend Fezziwig to the Ghost. And he looks sorrowfully thoughtful in the last panel as he expresses his desire to talk to Bob Cratchit just then.

“I Was a Boy Here!” | A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (2008)

Sean Michael Wilson and Mike Collins' adaptation is super faithful to Dickens with only a few changes. Like in Dickens, the Spirit leads Scrooge directly from his room to the countryside and Scrooge reacts the way he does is Dickens: with joy and tears.

The tears fit with how this version has presented Scrooge so far. Marley made some headway on this Scrooge in a way that the Classics Illustrated and Marvel Marleys didn't, so Scrooge is in a receptive mood. It doesn't mention his being pleased with his schoolmates' wishes of Merry Christmas, but it does include the little market town and leaves room for Scrooge's schoolmates to have been genuine friends to him (though - also like Dickens - it doesn't explicitly say that they were).

The school isn't especially rundown and since this version doesn't say anything more about Scrooge's dad than Dickens does, we can't infer anything about the Scrooge Family's financial status. I like how Collins draws the furniture in the schoolroom with the long benches mentioned in Dickens as opposed to the individual desks in many adaptations. It's not something I'm keeping track of, but there's a nice big panel of the schoolroom in this version, so it stands out.

Scrooge's literary companions are mentioned just as Dickens did, but because Scrooge seems mentally sound in this version, there's no reason to be concerned about Ali Baba and Company's appearing to Scrooge one Christmas. If it was an hallucination, it was a passing one. And it's more likely that Scrooge is just describing a vivid fantasy he had one Christmas when he was especially lonely.

Fan is younger than Scrooge and seems to be about eight or nine, which fits how I read her in Dickens. Her speech is right out of Dickens, too, and - as I said above - reveals nothing extra about Scrooge's dad. His unkindness towards Scrooge is still a mystery in this version.

The graphic novel is so faithful that it even includes the schoolmaster and dedicates a panel to his goodbye scene with Scrooge and Fan. It doesn't call attention to the wine and cake, but does show the Scrooge siblings eating. Contrary to Dickens though, they're apparently enjoying the snack and Scrooge even gives the schoolmaster a little smile when it's time to say goodbye.

Appropriate to Fan's age, she's been brought to the school in a carriage with a driver, but it's an open carriage in this one where Dickens described his as having a top for Scrooge's trunk to be tied to. C'est la vie.

“Your Reclamation, Then” | A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (2008)

Sean Michael Wilson and Mike Collins' adaptation again makes great use out of its longer page count. There are three entire pages dedicated just to chiming clocks and Scrooge's nervous build-up before the Spirit's appearance. It plays out just like it did in Dickens, with Scrooge's falling asleep and then being awakened by the midnight chimes so that he can count down the final hour.

Collins bravely takes up the challenge of faithfully depicting the Spirit. It's an accurate representation from the ghost's diminutive stature to its youthful, androgynous face and long, white hair. Collins even goes for the flickering effect by giving the Spirit extra limbs in some panels, but not in others. Sometimes it's more legs; sometimes more arms.

I wish that the holly branch was bigger, but oh well. And it's interesting that it and the cap disappear and reappear through the rest of the Spirit's visit. They're as ethereal as the Spirit itself.

Scrooge's reaction to the Spirit is as Dickens wrote it, but this adaptation calls out something that I missed earlier. In Dickens, Scrooge's observation about "a night of unbroken rest" being best for his welfare is an unspoken thought. I'm so used to its being spoken aloud in movie versions that I read it that way in the text, but Dickens specifically wrote that "the Spirit must have heard him thinking." Wilson and Collins called my attention to it by putting the "unbroken rest" line in a thought balloon. That also helps with what I noticed in the Marvel adaptation, where the "unbroken rest" line is omitted entirely. It was a risky approach for Marvel to just take it out and have the Spirit respond to it anyway, but I'm happy that now it at least looks like it was down on purpose.

The thing I don't like about this version of the scene is what it does with the Spirit's touch. Instead of asking Scrooge to bear but a touch of the Spirit's hand on Scrooge's heart, the Spirit pulls Scrooge's hand to its own heart. I guess it still works - that some of the Spirit's own compassion may pass into Scrooge this way - but it's an unnecessary change and I much prefer that the Spirit literally touch Scrooge's heart.

“More of Gravy than of Grave” | A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (2008)

Index of other entries in The Christmas Carol Project

Sean Michael Wilson and Mike Collins' adaptation makes great use of their longer page count for this scene. For instance, the knocker gets several panels all to itself. As Scrooge approaches his front door, he pulls out his key and we see the knocker (shaped like a lion, which is also how Marvel had it). Then a turn of the page reveals a shockingly large image of Marley's ghostly face (with waving hair to represent Marley's independent atmosphere), followed by smaller panels of Scrooge rubbing his eyes and closely inspecting the knocker that has now returned to normal. It's a scary, effective sequence.

Inside, text reveals that the staircase was broad and mentions that Scrooge thought he saw a hearse drive up it. But there's no hearse in the art, just some misty lines suggesting that something may have passed that way and turned a corner at the top of the stairs. Again, very effective.

After Scrooge checks out his rooms, the text leaves us alone while he eats his gruel. There's a nice close up of the Dutch tiles on the fireplace, followed by a close up of Scrooge's worried eyes, then back to the tiles, which now all contain Marley's face. Without any text, it suggests that Scrooge is actually seeing Marley again on the fireplace, but after the hearse, there's enough doubt about Scrooge's senses that we can suspect his mind is playing tricks.

The bell sequence is also nicely done. There's just enough text to explain that the bell is disused, then the art and sound effects take over to create a cacophony of clanging that ends abruptly. As soon as that's done, the clanging is replaced by creaks and clanks. Panels of Scrooge's listening face are interspersed with images of the staircase: first empty with a ghostly glow, then a close up of spectral chains, then cash boxes being dragged up the stairs. It's all super creepy and ends with a giant, top-of-the-page panel of Marley's appearing in Scrooge's room.

Collins draws Marley as translucent, rather than transparent. A background detail will occasionally show through his body, but for the most part he looks solid with the same ghostly glow we saw coming up the stairs. His first panel is pretty cool, with a pose that reminded me of Jack Kirby, but a character design that has some Jack Davis in it. When Marley eventually pulls off his bandage, his jaw drops to an unnatural degree. Classics Illustrated had Marley gape-mouthed, but looking more or less like any slack-jawed mortal. Marvel gave Marley a supernaturally large gape, but it ended up looking silly. Collins' version is as horrifying as it should be.

Scrooge delivers his "gravy" pun without any humor (in fact, he looks serious and angry when he says it), but there's a great pause directly after that where a wordless panel just has Marley and Scrooge looking at each other as if Marley's not sure how to follow up Scrooge's joke. Nor does he ever figure it out, because Scrooge then breaks the silence with his observations about swallowing toothpicks. (In another nice touch, Scrooge tosses the toothpick into the fireplace when he's done talking about it.)

Marley's reaction to Scrooge's doubt of course is to rattle his chains and shriek horribly. It has the desired effect and Scrooge is adequately frightened the rest of the scene. I especially like a wordless panel of Scrooge's pitiful, worried face right after Marley's speech about "why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down?" Wilson and Collins work these little beats all through the comic so far. In this case, the effect is to show that Scrooge isn't just afraid of Marley, but seems also to be internalizing his message. He's still not at all excited about receiving three more spirits, but I feel like Marley's made more headway on this version than either Classics Illustrated, Marvel, or even Dickens'. The coming ghosts will keep the same schedule that Dickens had them on (one a night for three nights).

Oh! Something this version helped me notice is a partial answer to a question Joe raised in the comments the other day. It's in Dickens' text, too, but I missed the part where Marley says that Scrooge's chance and hope for redemption is "of my procuring." As the conversation continues, he clarifies that the "chance and hope" are the three ghosts, so apparently this is all something that Marley asked to happen and has orchestrated. That still doesn't answer the question of why Marley had to spend so much time sitting invisible next to Scrooge before finally being able to deliver his message, but it does reveal Marley to be more integral to these events than I often give him credit for.

After all the warnings and announcements, Marley silently wraps his jaw closed again, straightens his chains (love that bit), and flies out the window. Scrooge follows to see a full splash page of mournful spirits flying around with a small image of a woman holding a baby in the street below. There's no mention of their trying to help her, so it's a subtle image. But like all the other choices Wilson and Collins made in this scene, I quite like it.

His Usual Melancholy Tavern | A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (2008)

Sean Michael Wilson and Mike Collins' version uses four panels to show us this scene. The first has Scrooge in the tavern, which - in spite of the caption box that tells us it's melancholy - has a warm, homey glow to it. The patrons are dour enough though, silently staring into their drinks with hats pulled down to conceal their eyes in shadow. In the background, separated from the others, Scrooge quietly accepts a plate from the tavern keeper.

The next two panels show Scrooge on his way home and we get a look at his house, mostly dark and forbidding except for that warm lantern glow that colorist James Offredi keeps including. It's a nice effect; it just doesn't fit the tone the story needs right there. I love Collins' work and especially David Roach's inks in these two panels. Scrooge is dramatic against the backgrounds and I get a great sense of Scrooge's solitude and the spookiness of the scene. I also like how Collins surrounds the house with other architecture. It feels much more claustrophobic than the Marvel version.

The final panel, with a caption about how Scrooge's chambers formerly belonging to Marley (but no mention of the rented offices), has Scrooge at the front door with the famous knocker, foreshadowing what's about to happen.

Index of other entries in The Christmas Carol Project

"If Quite Convenient, Sir" | A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (2008)

Index of other entries in The Christmas Carol Project

A couple of things have marked Sean Michael Wilson and Mike Collins' adaptation so far. First, though Classical Comics labels it as the "Original Text Version," it does make cuts. That's also true in this year's scene and I'll try to stop bringing it up every year from now on. Especially since this year's scene uses the edits to correct a problem I had earlier on.

In the introduction to Scrooge, Wilson's adaptation edited out some of Dickens' text, but still used a great deal of it when Collins' art was already communicating the same thing. As the charitable solicitors leave Scrooge's office though, the comic devotes a whole page - mostly wordless - to following them into the street and seeing the celebrations going on outside. The page ends with a caption about the intense, biting cold, but the majority of the page is just street scenes, including the "ragged men and boys" warming their hands around a brazier.

People on the street don't appear to be either especially joyous or miserable. Most of them are just going about their business, although the brazier men are appropriately scowling at their condition. The text makes no overt comment about the dichotomy between rich and poor celebrants, but the message is still there in those men's faces.

Though the Classical version cuts some text, it faithfully includes all the story beats, including the little boy singing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." Scrooge even grabs a ruler like he does in Dickens and the Marvel version, and the boy's reaction to that is pretty funny.

The second thing I've noticed in the Classical adaptation so far is that it's been hard to get a read on Scrooge and his relationship with Cratchit. I've enjoyed the extra space that this version gives the story, but Wilson and Collins haven't used it for character development. That changes a little with this scene. As in Dickens, Scrooge doesn't close up shop immediately after the caroller incident, but when it does become time to go, he's the one who makes the move.

Dickens mentions that Scrooge announces closing time, but he doesn't provide any dialogue for it. The first quote Dickens gives Scrooge in the scene is to ask if Cratchit needs the whole next day off. Wilson doesn't create dialogue where Dickens didn't, so it plays out a bit differently in this version. Instead of Scrooge's announcing the time, he just gets up, puts on his hat, and asks about the day off. That makes it seem like this is something Scrooge has been thinking about for a few minutes, as opposed to an off-handed comment. Collins draws Scrooge's face from the side and rear in this panel, so I can't tell what he's thinking, but it's possible to read a touch of sadness in him there, like he's been dreading this conversation.

For Cratchit's part, the clerk responds with chipper innocence. He seems almost clueless to Scrooge's grumping. There's no sense that he's incompetent - as suggested in the George C Scott version - but he may be dim-witted enough not to take Scrooge personally, even when Scrooge clearly means for Cratchit to. Or maybe Cratchit's just mature enough not to rise to to Scrooge's bait. It'll be interesting to see how this Cratchit behaves later in the story. Is he an idiot or just thick-skinned?

Whichever it is, Scrooge doesn't like that he's not getting his employee's goat and he gets angrier as the conversation progresses. By the end, he's impotently scowling as he orders Cratchit to "be here all the earlier next morning." It's an interesting power dynamic, because Scrooge clearly has all the power, but Cratchit is so not bothered by it that Scrooge doesn't actually benefit.

Like in Dickens, Cratchit gets to go home right after Scrooge and Collins draws Scrooge still skulking off down the street as Cratchit locks the front door. There's also a final panel of Cratchit's joyfully joining a couple of boys in a slide, further emphasizing how little effect Scrooge's mood has on him.

'You Wish to Be Anonymous?' | A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (2008)

Index of other entries in The Christmas Carol Project

One of the things I've paid attention to the last couple of years with Classical Comics' A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel is how closely the adaptation adheres to its claim that it's the "original text." In previous scenes, there have been some abridgements, but for this one we get the whole thing.

It works rather well, too. Writer Sean Michael Wilson and artist Mike Collins give the scene four pages with plenty of room for reaction shots like the one above. I quite like that beat with the solicitors' looking at each other to see if they're reading Scrooge the same way. Other than that, the reactions are all ones that we expect - Scrooge is grumpy; the men are perplexed - but I like that the scene has room to breathe even if it doesn't add much new to our understanding of the characters.

One other thing I was reminded of though as I revisited Dickens' text to compare it with this one, was that Dickens has the lead gentleman present his credentials to Scrooge. Wilson and Collins include that (and Scrooge's handing them back), but it only now occurs to me that that's also what was going on in Patrick Stewart's version with the pamphlet. And we'll see it again in Jim Carrey's tomorrow.

'Merry Christmas, Uncle!' | Classical Comics (2008)

The Classical graphic novel adaptation runs through the scene capably, but without much additional insight. I do like how it communicates Fred's quickness in approaching Scrooge though. It has Fred peeking in on his uncle from the doorway in one panel, then looming over him in the next. That ability to play with time and pacing is an advantage that comics has over film, but it's the only advantage this version makes use of. Mostly, the scene plays out as Dickens wrote it, with various shots of the characters talking to each other. Scrooge never gets up from his desk and Fred stays put beside him, so there's not even any motion to keep things interesting.

The graphic novel is almost true to its "Original Text" claim, but it does make some minor dialogue cuts: especially during Fred's speech. It's one of the more complete versions around, but as light as the trimming is, it still takes away from the overall tone of the speech. In Dickens, Fred completely deserves the "powerful speaker" compliment for all the rhetorical flourishes and parenthetical asides he makes. It's exactly those supposedly extraneous elements that most adaptations choose to cut out though, so Scrooge's compliment doesn't make as much sense. I'm used to that, but it's disappointing to see it happen again in a book that markets itself as being true to Dickens' original text.

Another disappointing cut is Cratchit's applause after Fred's speech. There's no humor to it at all. He simply claps and Scrooge threatens his "situation." Cratchit's widened eyes are in the foreground as Scrooge does that, but even though Cratchit is surprised, it's impossible to tell anything more about his relationship with Scrooge from the interaction.

Deviating again from the text, Classical has Scrooge respond to Fred's dinner invitation with, "I will see you, but I'll see you damned first!" That's an interesting interpretation of Dickens' explanation that "Scrooge said that he would see him - yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first." I read that as a colorful way of saying, "I'll see you in hell first!" and I like my briefer interpretation better. But adding a literal "I will see you" to the front is also a valid way of reading it.

The last thing I'll comment on is Scrooge's muttering after Fred exchanges Christmas greetings with Cratchit. The graphic novel represents this with a dotted line word balloon, which is typically read as whispering and just sounds weird in the context of the scene. Muttering is better represented by smaller text, perhaps in a balloon with squiggly edges. The whispering makes it sound like Scrooge has actually gone crazy and needs to retire to Bedlam, but that's not the reason Dickens had him make the comment.

Old Sinner: Classical Comics (2008)

Classical Comics has a cool format for their adaptations of classic literature. They publish a couple of versions of the same story with the same art, but different text depending on your preference. For example, if you want to read Henry V, you can get the Original Text, the Plain Text, or the Quick Text. I'm usually an Original Text kind of guy, so that's what I picked up for A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel, but there's also a Quick Text version that I'd love to see because I'm almost as interested in what gets cut out of these things as how the material is handled that's left in. Oh, well. Classical skips the Plain Text version for this story, presumably because Dickens' English isn't as challenging to modern readers as Shakespeare's.

Like the Marvel adaptation, the Classical version (scripted by Sean Michael Wilson and illustrated by Mike Collins) begins with Marley's grave, but because it's a 160-page graphic novel, it has room to spend a whole page on it. Unlike Marvel's, this version doesn't open on the funeral, but with various shots of the church and its graveyard, ending with Marley's tombstone.

As the text moves to talking about Scrooge, there are several details of the old man interrupted once by the famous Scrooge & Marley sign at the appropriate place. Prolonging the drama of Scrooge's full appearance, we follow him towards the counting-house with him in silhouette and watch his hand unlock the door to his place. I like how when he goes inside, a dog pulls its blind owner across the street, illustrating one of my favorite passages in Dickens' portrait of the character.

Though this is the Original Text version, it is abridged. Dickens' comparison of his ghost story to Hamlet is the first thing I miss. That's disappointing. If they're going to cut that, then why not also cut some of the other text that's made redundant by the illustrations?

At least the art doesn't contradict the text in this one. There's a splash page of the exterior of the counting-house as the text tells us what night it is and describes the weather, but it's nice to see that - unlike Marvel's - it really is cold, bleak, and biting out.

Inside, we don't see the clerk's fire. The text describes it and lets our imaginations figure out what it looks like. I like that. The clerk stays seated through the description, holding his hands near the candle flame in one panel. We finally get a good look at Scrooge and do get to see his fire. It's small and hardly warming, but we can easily imagine a smaller one at Cratchit's desk. Nice job.

Another abridgment though is Dickens' line about Scrooge's predicting "that it would be necessary for [he and the clerk] to part." We're just told that Scrooge keeps the coal-box in his room and that appears to be all the discouragement the clerk needs.

Scrooge is drawn traditionally with a bald head on top and longish, white hair in back. He's thin and hunched over as he works. He looks angry, but he could just be concentrating. It's hard to get a sense of him through the art, but we've already had Dickens' description in the text, so maybe that's not so important.



It takes A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel five pages to do what Classics Illustrated and Marvel needed only a couple. That's because Classical is committed to using more of Dickens' text, but I'm not sure it's a great choice. A lot of the illustrations in Classical's feel like unnecessary padding in order to give the text time to catch up. Though Marvel in particular also errs in using text that it doesn't need to, it does that far less than Classical and moves a lot faster. I'm not even sure how much Classical's Quick Text version would improve the pace because they use the same art for both versions. I guess your eye would move through the panels faster without so much text to read, but there would still be a lot of unneeded panels.