Moby Dick (Campfire Graphic Novels) [Paperback]

Lance Stahlberg (Adapter), Herman Melville (Author), Lalit Kumar (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Campfire Graphic Novels

It was an obsession that would destroy them all...

On a cold December night, a young man called Ishmael rents a room at an inn in Massachusetts. He has come from Manhattan to the north-east of America to sign up for a whaling expedition.

Later that same night, as Ishmael is sleeping, a heavily tattooed man wielding a blade enters his room. This chance meeting is just the start of what will become the greatest adventure of his life.

The next day, Ishmael joins the crew of a ship known as the Pequod. He is approached by a man dressed in rags who warns him that, if he sails under the command of Captain Ahab, he may never come back. Undaunted, Ishmael returns early the next morning and leaves for the high seas.

For the crew of the Pequod, their voyage is one of monetary gain. For Captain Ahab, however, it is a mission driven by hatred, revenge, and his growing obsession with the greatest creature of the sea.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

“Can you pitch a harpoon down a live whale’s throat and then jump in after it?” Ishmael is asked upon a request to join the crew of the whaling ship Pequod. The dark pit that Ishmael hurls himself into is not Moby Dick, as readers of Melville’s classic know, but rather the fixation of Captain Ahab, who is driven to find the whale that took his leg and with it the rest of his life. As the question put to Ishmael masks an unexpected answer, so does literature’s greatest maritime adventure mask a story that is mainly a character study about a man willing to destroy himself and his crew in pursuit of his obsession. One of Campfire’s new line of classic adaptations, this graphic novel unobtrusively modernizes wording and renders visuals with a gorgeous, painterly care as it presents what is essentially a static tale of narration and dialogue (save the climactic battle) that will take many first-time readers expecting a more dynamic story quite by surprise with its penchant for psychological insight. Grades 7-10. --Jesse Karp

Review

In this slender graphic adaptation of Melville’s magnum opus, Ishmael, Queequeg and the rest of the uniformly burly, steely-eyed whalers are strong presences in Singh’s art — at least until their pale, gargantuan nemesis shows up to scatter them and their ship as flotsam across the waves. . . . The biographical introduction and closing pages on whaling ships and sperm whales provide a nice veneer of historical context.

— Kirkus Reviews

"I highly recommend Campfire’s comics. They do what they are intended to do and do it in  a way that excites kids about classic literature."

— Chris Wilson, The Graphic Classroom (a resource for teachers and librarians) 

"Stahlberg and Singh understand that the kids of today don't want to be talked down to. . . . The comic reads as a full story; there isn't really much that seems as if it's missing.  Lalit Kumar Singh can stand up to any artist working in the Big Two today. He has a style reminiscent of Andy Kubert, or even, dare I say, early Marc Silvestri. The angular, realistic style expertly captures the dark nature of the story without going so dark as to possibly turn off younger readers. . . . If you have a kid whom you'd like to get into reading comics, and if you have a kid whom you'd like to get into classic literature, Moby Dick comes highly recommended."

— The Comics Cube!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: Campfire (July 27, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9380028229
• ISBN-13: 978-9380028224
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 0.2 x 10.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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