Advance Review: Corominas’s ‘Dorian Gray’ Is A Beautiful Adaptation
by Benjamin Hall
Summary
Writer and artist Enrique Corominas presents his adaptation of author Oscar Wilde‘s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. This version of the classic is about beauty and corruption much like the original. Yet, deviations to the story are waiting for readers to find. Can you spot any of them upon a first time reading?
Overall
9.8/10The small sizing of the periods within the word balloons can be problematic. This is because a reader might fail to see them and then miss the break between certain sentences. However, the font and sizing is otherwise fine for the story pages. Unfortunately, the opening quote by Dorian Gray’s original author, Oscar Wilde, has an irksome problem with how the other font style executes the lowercase letter a (The Picture of Dorian Gray [1891]. This flaw of a letter resembling a numeral, while relatively harmless, is still disappointing, seeing as both fonts are otherwise beautiful.
Finally, the placement of the text elements is debatable only in the case of the word balloons’ anchors. These anchors seem almost to be very short wisps of air around the characters, with one nearly matching light on a long curtain.
The range of the color palette is possibly one of the widest that one can find. Not to mention that the selection for each setting expertly creates a different atmosphere. For example, the lighter exterior scene near the beginning evokes the innocence of Dorian’s life prior to the finishing of his portrait. While the panels where the painting starts to stop his ageing occur with hues that suggest a Faustian bargain taking place. One can also argue that the idea of motion for these static images is coming more from the colors than the line work. Nevertheless, each line is a necessity in order to have a framework for the hues to exist in. Thus, the sum of the illustrations remain larger than the separate skills of drawing and coloring can exhibit.
As far as the adaptation goes it feels straight forward with little to prompt the idea that there are deviations from the original novel. Therefore, it seems faithful while definitely being beautiful.
The English edition’s creative team consists of writer, artist, and colorist Enrique Corominas, letterer Jessica Burton, and translator Christopher Bradley. There is also the English publication’s book design by designer Matt Bookman which apparently differs in some way from the French edition’s design by designer Vincent Odin.
Dorian Gray sees release from Titan Comics on October 21st.
