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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel

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Everybodu knows about "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" -- Jane Austen's classic comedy of manners, zombies and ninjas, blah blah blah. Unfortunately, the book doesn't really translate well into a graphic novel -- it falls completely flat because of the patchy editing and some of the laziest artwork I've ever seen, which ends up confusing an otherwise enjoyable spoof.

You know the drill: the Bennett family is in an uproar when wealthy Mr. Bingley moves into the neighborhood, and Mrs. Bennett is especially happy when he takes a liking to the eldest Bennett daughter Jane. At the same time, Elizabeth matches wits with the haughty Mr. Darcy, rebuffs her toadyish cousin Mr. Collins, and befriends the hunky flirty Mr. Wickham (who claims to have been wronged by Wickham). Scandals, weddings and nasty old bats ensue.

However, this isn't exactly the Jane Austen story one would expect. England is overrun by a plague that turns people into shambling zombies. The Sisters Bennet are deadly Shaolin-trained warriors (Lizzle "has something more of the killer instinct than her sisters"), Lady Catherine is a feared zombie-slayer with an army of ninjas, balls are crashed by the undead, and Charlotte Lucas accepts Mr. Collins' proposal after she's infected by the zombie plague. I guess marriage to the professional toady isn't quite as bad as becoming a zombie.

"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" was the start of the current ongoing fad for adding zombies, sea monsters, werewolves, vampires and other horror tropes to classic literature. It actually seems like a really cool idea for a graphic novel, but unfortunately the result is a hastily slapped-together cash-in -- and the biggest problem is the artwork.

The concept is still pretty cool, and of course the dialogue is pretty hilarious ("I prefer a great many things to cards, Mr. Hurst. Not the least of which is the sensation of a newly sharpened blade as a punctures the round belly of a man"). But the editing is rather patchy, jumping quickly from scene to scene.

And the artwork is just TERRIBLE. The character designs look realistic and well-proportioned, and there are some very gross action scenes included. BUUUUUUUTTTT.... the artwork is abysmally lazy and halfhearted -- it literally looks like somebody started sketching out the artwork in pencil, decided, "Eh, this is good enough. I'll just release these rough sketches," and slapped together the graphic novel on the spot. It literally looks unfinished! Would it have killed the publishers to include some ink?

Additionally, both men and women look way too similar -- Lizzie, Lydia and Mrs. Bennett (yes, Mrs Bennett!) are almost identical, and I have trouble telling Darcy from Bingley or Wickham. I can only tell Jane apart from the other girls because she has dark hair, and Charlotte because she... well, never mind.

"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel" is as disappointing as Sir William's zombie-slaying abilities -- while the story is diverting, the haphazard artwork is absolutely disastrous. Avoid this as you would the unmentionables.

Note: I haven't read either the original work by Austen, or the novel with Zombies.

I genuinely enjoyed this take on Victorian Britain, and what I assume to be a pleasing satire of Jane Austen's original novel. As I read, I worked to construct possible parallels that might cover for original pieces of Austen. The comic is funny, consistent, and (thanks to Austen) features great characters and a fitting end.

I don't understand why they didn't bother to ink the comic. Does Jane Austen really need to be in black and white? Also, this is a very talky comic, with plenty of dialogue on every page; I prefer something more fast-paced, though you may prefer the detailed plot an adaption like this offers.

I'm a Pride and Prejudice fanatic and I had to have this for my collection. It follows the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies novel quite well and it was fun to see it in graphic novel form.

Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters are weapons of mass destruction when it comes to taking out the undead. The zombie scourge has taken over the lovely English countryside, and these girls will simply not stand for it. Their father encourages them to fight the good fight, while their mother only wishes them to marry and become proper ladies. When Eliza encounters Darcy, a formidible oponent in more ways than one, she is certain that she will not lose her head, which is less than can be said for the zombies she encounters.

I have long been an proponent of the monster mash up genre, particularly when it is done very very well. The paperback version of this story is what started my love affair with this genre. So, it is no surprise that I still really love the story, even in a different form. I still find it incredibly clever, and innovative.

The part I disliked was that graphic portion of the book I found it disappointing. The Bennet sisters were hard to distinguish from each other in the illustrations, which made the reading a little clunky. I think this would have most definitely benefitted from being in color as opposed to black and white. I think a lot of the story, and it's impact, is lost in the nondescript drawings as they are.

This is a mixed bag for me. I love the story, I just prefer it in novel form. I created much better pictures in my own mind.

I hadn't read the book from which this is adapted - just picked up the graphic novel out of curiosity and because I've enjoyed Austen's works in the past.

The artwork was ok - there's a clear homage to 1960s Modesty Blaise black and white comics in there. Scenes are very busily drawn, the women are almost too beautiful in that 60s/70s photojournalistic way: large breasted, big full lips, serious mien, and a lot of hair. In fact, if you want to know how the art is in this graphic novel, do a search on the net for Modesty Blaise and you'll get the idea.

There might be perhaps too much of an attempt to adapt the book: scenes are choppy and the book does lack flow. Emotion is completely lost and people act almost irrationally: typical for an abridged version of any large book. But I did get the idea of the book from which it was written (and from THAT book's original Austen work).

I have to wonder if this would have been more interesting in a glossy color sort of way rather than the vintage 1960s Dick Tracy/Modesty Blaise treatment. The down-to-earth realism of the drawings are kind of at odds with the fairy tale nature of the story. A tongue in cheek quirky book is given a dead serious and even boring rendition seems kind of a shame.

I thoroughly enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!. So when I heard P&P&Z the Graphic Novel was coming out I was excited to purchase it. I even pre-ordered it.
But after receiving it and giving it a quick read through, all I can say is "it's OK."

Though the story is nicely adapted into the graphic novel format, I simply can't get past the drawings--which are entirely in black and white. I read the first few pages and quickly had to put it down because my eyes started to hurt. I'm 25 years old. My eyes shouldn't be hurting! Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against strictly black and white drawings (I am a big fan of The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1), I just don't feel they were done right.

I know the goal was to make it look similar to the drawings featured in P&P&Z--but I'm sad to say it just isn't working for me. The reason the drawings in the novel worked was because they were so detailed! This gn looks more like sketches.

For those who are a fan of the original Austen Novel, I suggest purchasing Pride and Prejudice (Graphic Novel) Its nicely done.

For those who loved P&P&Z the novel, like I did. I say, there's no harm in getting this gn, just don't expect much on the visual side.

I love zombies and I love Jane Austen so of course when I read the novel of P&P&Z I adored it. I was excited to hear there would be a graphic novel format, but it didn't translate well to comics. I love comic books and I liked the character designs, but it took me forever to get through this volume! It was just so slow and jumbled. If you want to read an awesome zombie comic pick up The Walking Dead instead.

I've not read the original novels FYI.

With that said I found the comic adaptation of P&P&Z to be a good read overall but one that's held back by a few big flaws. The main one is that it's all pencils. While the art is very good just looking at it takes a little getting used to. Especially if you're a long time comics reader like I am. Inking would have helped this issue a LOT.

In terms of storytelling there are a lot of really good, funny moments. But there are also long patches of just people talking. Usually the girls nattering on about getting married. After a while this gets so dull I found myself almost wishing for a zombie attack in the real world just to wake myself up from the boredom.

Overall, this is worth a read mainly if you're interested in the story but don't want to slough through a few hundred pages of prose to get it. I'd firmly call it a "borrow."

The book is a little slow in places and it bothered me how quickly the zombie encounters ended because, lets be honest, the zombies are the only reason any of us really wanted to read this book. If that wasn't the case, we would have gone out and purchased the original Pride and Prejudice. Pretty good book though, just a tad bit disappointed with the infusion of "zombie mayhem". For the price i would definitely recommend it, even better if you can get it used.