I fell down a rabbit hole this past weekend.
It started with a comic book, A Study in Emerald. Then it was Major Holmes and Captain Watson. Then I was reminded that I ordered another comic, Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook which I’ll be reviewing next week.
During my search and discussion of Holmesian comic, I met Johanna Draper Carlson who runs the popular comic book websites, ComicsWorthReading.com. Inside that she began a Sherlock Holmes in Comics section that discusses Holmesian comics. It’s there, I found the rabbit hole. Sherlock Holmes has been around in book from for over a century, but the comic and manga are equally popular. From the original stories like Valley of Fear that came out in comic form in 2010, the American reimagining of Watson and Holmes that was published in 2016 to the popular manga Moriarty the Patriot that also released in 2016, it seems as if Sherlock Holmes in comic form is a literary staple that gains new readers every year. If we can’t tempt new readers with the original text, then we can introduce them to the classics via animation and comic books.
In my public relations class, it is taught that humans have an attention span of about eight seconds and the best way to catch that attention is by images. Comics have long captured the imagination of young and old. It’s rare that any of us haven’t at one time picked up a comic book and been transported to places that fuel our imagination. And more recently, comics and manga especially have begun to turn classic books into art to inspire and encourage the younger generations to read. If we can get kids to read, get something that catches their attention and keeps them engaged, why is that a bad thing? Classics are classics for a reason. If reading the manga BBC Sherlock Holmes novels encourages a kid to pick up the classics, so much the better.
Go take a look at Johanna’s website. She holds 20 plus years’ experience at reviewing and rating comic books of all kinds plus the background in which to back it up. I am but a novice to her. She and I will be reviewing Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook within the next week or two. I’ll post the link to her review on here as well. She gave me a list of books and comics to investigate, which I am eagerly anticipating digging further into this rabbit hole to look at. I promise to break them up, get back to reviews after my hiatus. I have a few reviews lined up already that I think you all might find interesting. So, until next week, enjoy the warm weather and get comfortable with a good book.
Mouse's Reading Nook 