All three of the new pieces take a visually serious approach to the material – as does Mark A. Nelson in an elegant adaptation of the Arizona ghost story, "The Stranger" – though several of the book's other contributors provide a lighter touch to Bierce's short fictions. Particularly strong is Michael Slack's stylized artwork on the illustrated story, "The Hypnotist," an unflinching piece narrated by an unapologetic murderer that might have been unbearable if it'd been rendered more realistically. Same goes for Anne Owens' adaptation of "Oil of Dog," which is rendered in a buoyant cartoon gothic style that looks like something the Tim Burton of Sweeney Todd might have lensed. Owens' adaptation is nearly as wordy as "Moxon's Master," but because she letters her longer passages outside the panels, giving them less of a constricted feel, the story reads more smoothly.
Pomplun also includes a cartoonishly irreverent four-page consideration of the life of Bierce by Mort Castle and Dan E. Burr, which itself proves as entertaining as any of the tales in this book. The adventurous Bierce famously disappeared in Mexico in 1913 or '14, and "The Disappearance of Ambrose Bierce" examines the various theories put forth to explain this slice of American literary history – including Charles Fort's magnificently bizarre theory that the man of letters was abducted by aliens looking to collect men named Ambrose. Bierce, one suspects, would've been amused both by Fort's wackiness and the comic here exposing it . . .
Article comments