I read very few graphic novels, probably less than four in my entire lifetime. She even has a pair of black buttons and a sewing kit ready… Initially, she seems very nice and kind but Coraline soon finds that this “Other Mother” wants Coraline to stay with her permanently in this alternate-mansion. She does resemble Coraline’s mother quite a bit except for her eyes which are made of black buttons. The first person Coraline meets in this dimension is a woman who claims to be her “Other Mother”. She fancies herself an intrepid explorer, one day her exploration of her new home leads her to a mysterious passage that leads to what appears to be a parallel universe where things may initially seem very similar but yet not quite the same as our world. What of the story then? The story is great.Ĭoraline is about an 11-year-old girl who moves into an old mansion with her parents. Something about that “scuttling” text just scuttles. Even the style of the font and the layout can convey an otherworldly feeling of dread. There are quite a few pictures like this in this book where so much is communicated with so little. Nothing much is happening in the above picture, the very first frame of the graphic novel edition of Coraline but it still manages to be foreboding and disquieting. Instead go watch the movie even if it changes the plot a little.

On a character level this failed drastically, and on an artistic level it felt devoid of the essence of this story. To reuse the word ordinary again, that is all I get from her. With the girl in the comic I don’t get that. She’s unique and in some regards a little bit of an outsider. I don’t see this contrasting version in the comic. When I think of the character, that is who I see. Perhaps it’s because the film interpreted the novel in a different way, one that makes me see Coraline as the animated version. Look at the Sandman series and look at the Sleeper in the Spindle.

This does not have the artistic flair that is associated with Gaiman comics. There is no sense of spookiness or otherworldliness it just feels so basic. The basic story is here, rendered in the most simplistic comic art I’ve seen in a while, and that’s about it. This, however, is bland, tasteless and ordinary. The movie version captured this superbly, partly through the weirdness of its soundtrack.

Coraline has undertones of the gothic, of the unusual, of the untraceable. So the plot of Corlaine is superb there’s no arguing that, yet this comic adaption of it is just poor. This is part of the book’s greatness: it will always remain elusive. Sure we can make guesses at the magic behind it, but we will never fully be able to understand how it works. My head hurts when I think about what is actually happening. Coraline is a wonderful novel it’s full of mystery.

Coraline by P. Craig Russell