Book #26

Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things by Ted Naifeh

Presenting the initial Courtney Crumrin miniseries in a new digest-sized format. Courtney’s parents have dragged her out to a high-to-do suburb to live with her creepy Great Uncle Aloysius in his spooky old house. She’s not only the new kid in school, but she also discovers strange things lurking under her bed.

I picked this up from NetGalley as a means of testing their ability to handle graphic novels. Let me just say that Adobe Digital Editions is not the best way of reading a comic… I didn’t have any familiarity with Ted Naifeh’s comic previous to this.

Courtney Crumrin is…well, charming isn’t quite the word. She’s contrary and ill-tempered and decidedly her own person. And that’s the point of her. She’s not the most well-liked, but is resourceful enough to find friends in…other places. Through sorcery learned from her creepy uncle (or is it great-uncle? or great-great-uncle?), Courtney dabbles in popularity and finds that it’s not for her. That, of course, doesn’t make being the new girl at a new school and new town any less awful.

Story-wise, the individual sections do not flow together particularly well. I grant that this is a collection, but I wish that there was some interstitial connections and maybe more of an over arching plot. Naifeh’s art is interesting. While some of his characters and settings are very well detailed, Courtney and her peers are drawn in a somewhat unfinished style. I assume that’s intentional. These are unfinished people. In contrast, the most detailed character is Uncle Aloysius.

Format: Adobe Digital Edition
Procurement: NetGalley