Clue TP Paperback – 6 Mar. 2018

I think a graphic novel based on a board game is going to be tricky. It had some interesting characters, but its plot tried to be clever, but the ending was lacking.

These days it seems like no IP stone can go unturned in the quest for content, and so here we have a graphic novel based on the 70-year-old board game Cluedo (or Clue, in the USA). Having spawned a film, several TV series, an off-Broadway musical, a children's book series, several video games, and plenty of parodies, the game's elements of colorful characters, improvised weapons, and large mansion on a dark and stormy night, are here given the modern comic-book treatment. Whether or not you enjoy this treatment will likely depend on the ability to detach expectations from the game and/or the film and take it for what it is -- a goofy and convoluted story that gets awfully meta. It gives nothing away to tell that the mansion's butler serves as an omniscient narrator who quite literally breaks the 4th-wall in addressing the reader and climbing out of panels... There are plenty of in-joke references to the movie, and some of the characters appear to be rather thinly veiled caricatures of real-life people. The storyline unfolds in a pretty choppy manner, with flashbacks aplenty, and at times one has to stop and reread to keep track of what's going on and why. The ending is about all one can expect from the premise of eight strangers being gathered for unknown reasons. It makes sense, but it's not exactly going to blow one's socks off. In another meta-flourish that is somewhat clever, the motive behind the mayhem is itself IP. Oh -- the artwork is kind of retro-chunky fun, and hews to the goofy spirit of the whole thing. All in all, it's a fine diversion.