Section Three: Monte Cristo in Comics and Manga
Section Three: Monte Cristo in Comics and Manga
"A picture is worth a thousand words". I like comics. If I wish to discover great literature, I am not ashamed at all to head for a copy "Classics Illustrated" to get the general gist of a story. If I like it, I could read the actual book. If I hated it, then maybe one hour is "lost" and not several days of reading through tomes of dense text, only to be sorely upset and disappointed at the ending,
Comics are a very visual medium, and The Count of Monte Cristo has little physical action but a lot of psychological warfare. Comics publishers understandably try to make the story appear "more exciting" so they add pages of sword fighting or knife fighting, at the cost of plot-essential developments ("Jumbo Comics", "Dell Four Color" #794, "Marvel Classics Comics").
The "what's disposable" and "what's essential" plot points are consolidated into a table, identical to the one for the children's books. ✅ means it is present. ❌ means it was deleted. ✂ means it is partially present or vaguely alluded to.
Comics that are a) too far removed from the source or b) too long, poorly written and incomprehensible will not have a plot point table at all.
Each comic has a TV Tropes "Adaptation Deviation" score. The high end means
the comic had been extensively altered the story, almost to the point of
making it unrecognizable. A low score means the comic follows the original
novel faithfully.
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JUMBO COMICS, issues #1-17. 1938-1940 (52 pages). Script: (unknown), Art: Jack Kirby (credited as Jack Curtiss) and Lou Fine (credited as Jack Cortez)."Jumbo Comics" was an early anthology comic, so The Count of Monte Cristo was serialized into 1-4 page installments per issue. Lou Fine’s artwork is the better of the two, with his line work and use of shadow being excellent. The faces of the characters range from realistic (Dantes, Morrel) to goofy, cartoony caricatures (Caderousse, Jocopo [sic], incidental jailers and soldiers) The second half of the story goes way off-course. Fernand’s trial is changed to a theater play of The Ali Pasha Affair, where Haydee makes her accusation against him there(?). Later on, the characters’ dialogue and behavior begins to slip from 1830’s France to 1930’s America, where Danglars and Villefort, upset over their business losses, smack each other around and then shoot each other (not a duel) like common lowbrow gangsters(!). As you can see in the plot points table (below), Jumbo Comics' adaptation has little resemblance to Dumas' work. A useless new character (Inspector Fouche) was added, and important characters such as Bertuccio, Benedetto, Heloise and Edouard, Maximilian and Valentine were all written out. It ends with the Count leaving his fortune to Albert and Mercedes, as he has nobody else to leave it to. The endings of almost every main character differs wildly from canon, and only Faria, the Count and Haydee ring true. Everybody else went out on some weird tangent.
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CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED, issue #3. 1947 (62 pages). Script: (unknown), Art: Ray Ramsey, Allen Simon and Vivian Lipman.The original "Classics Illustrated" version, from 1947. Art uncredited, but attributed to Ray Ramsey, Allen Simon and Vivian Lipman. It's crudely illustrated, and the characters are drawn stiffly with little emotion or dynamic movement. Body proportions and the use of perspective are sometimes poor. In some panels, characters standing in front of other characters look laughably like midgets. But, this can all be forgiven because the writing is done very well. At 62 pages, with 8 panels jammed onto each page, this version manages to depict almost all of the characters and the subplots of the original story, including the often-trimmed Franz D'Epinay and his adventures with Sinbad the Sailor and in Rome. We lose a feel for the characters and their inner thoughts, of course, and they're all one-dimensional, devoid of personality and are present only to fulfill their roles in serving the plot. But the existence of this comic proves that the almost-complete tale can be told in less than 100 pages.
Still recommended, as a quick, easy-to-read way to understand the
story and the characters, their motivations, their interlocking
relationships and their fates and without reading the unabridged Dumas book. As an aside... shhhhhh... this might even be used for
students to "write a book report or a term paper".
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THRILLER COMICS LIBRARY, issue #45. 1953 (64 pages). Script: Peter O'Donnell, Art: W. Heath Robinson.Now this is gem from the UK! Don’t be fooled by the name “Thriller Comics”... there’s no Crypt Keeper here. Instead, this is a stunningly-drawn (by W. Heath Robinson) 64 page adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, where literally EVERY panel is a thing of beauty, very much akin to traditional book illustration, as opposed to comic book style art. About half of the book covers Dantes’ story up to discovering Faria's treasure, leaving only half for the revenge part, so a lot of the original’s complexity was cut out or rewritten. The Count’s ruination of Danglars, Fernand and Villefort are completely independent episodes without them and their families being interconnected. Villefort is portrayed as being the poisoner(!), Haydee’s presence is only to denounce Fernand and, in the end, Dantes and Mercedes rekindle their love for each other. Groan. I should rave again about the artwork! Everything... the settings, the clothing, the hair, the uniforms, the carriages... so spot-on and period appropriate!
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CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED, issue #3. 1956 (47 pages). Script: (unknown), Art: Lou Cameron.A 1956 remake of The Count of Monte Cristo, also by "Classics Illustrated". The story had been rewritten, and the artwork completely redone as part of a general 1950's revamp of the titles in the series, often bringing in better artists and reducing the number of pages. For a comic, there is an awful lot of talking heads and little action depicted. The reader POV (camera angles) are generally flat and dull. But Lou Cameron's artwork is a great improvement over the earlier comic drawn by Ramsey, Simon and Lipman. In reducing the number of pages and the panels per page, some important subplots and characters had been tossed out. Particularly, the removal of Caderousse, Villefort's attempted burial of his illegitimate baby boy, and Andrea Cavalcanti and their roles in Villefort's final downfall. Haydee is almost completely excised, and only appears in one panel to testify at Fernand's trial and disappears from the story, therefore taking away the Count's happy ending. This had been re-issued in 1997 by Acclaim Books, with a hideous digital color overlay.
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FOUR COLOR (DELL), issue #794. 1957 (36 pages). Script: (unknown), Art: John Buscema.This is a really strange version of The Count of Monte Cristo. It's only 36 pages. Extremely well-illustrated by the legendary John Buscema. The first half, covering the story up to Dantes' discovery of the treasure on Monte Cristo is fairly accurate to the original book. The time Dantes spent with Abbe Faria in prison is probably the best of the comics depictions. The second half has almost nothing to do with the original. The writers simply made up their own story and conclusion! Caderousse is merged with the corrupt telegraph operator, and the main antagonists are Danglars and Lucien Debray. Danglars and Debray break into the Count's house to kill him but he's prepared, so they get into an absurd sword fight with him. They lose, and Villefort is called in to arrest the pair (!!!) Dantes does not seek any revenge on Fernand and Villefort, despite their role in ruining his life. In fact, Fernand and Mercedes disappear very early in the book, with only a short spoken update from Caderousse that the pair had married and... nothing ever comes of that. They do not re-appear. On the last page, the Count muses that someday, evil-doers such as Villefort will "answer to justice", but that never happens, since there is no Part Two to this. Fernand and Villefort simply get away with their crimes against him!
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DONALD DUCK AND THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (in Italian). 1957 (60 pages). Script: Guido Martina, Art: Luciano Bottara.Reprinted (in English) as DISNEY LITERATURE CLASSICS, issue #7. 2010 (59 pages); and under DISNEY DIGITAL COMICS, issues #1-2. 2013 (59 pages), available in COMIXOLOGY. This takes place in modern times (circa 1957). Gladstone Gander and Uncle Scrooge, reluctant business partners, want to build a Millionaire's Railway and Donald's house is in the way. To get rid of Donald, Gladstone plants $100,000 in stolen money at his house and gets Donald arrested and sent to prison (in Duckburg, USA). There, Donald encounters an old, old Faria, who had been digging an escape tunnel (from Marseilles, France) for 120 years (!!!). He'd managed to tunnel under the entire Atlantic Ocean! Faria is too old to dig any further and gives Donald a map to the Monte Cristo treasure. Nobody dies, and Donald escapes and ends up on a nearby island and finds a treasure chest, some gold and an incredibly badly-translated note that indicates that in 1856, Edmond Dantes left a portion of his Monte Cristo treasure in America, so Donald doesn't need to go to France, or follow Faria's map at all! And, that's the end of any Monte Cristo characters and references! The rest of the comic is about Donald rescuing his nephews and sabotaging Gladstone and Uncle Scrooge's Millionaire's Railway (not that it made any sense to begin with).
Crap, this isn't what I expected! There's no "literature" here, and
it's not funny enough to be a parody. It's false advertising, because
The Count does not make an appearance! It's well drawn, but badly
plotted and translated. The premise, setup, execution and resolution
of the plot are totally nonsensical. Don't buy this for kids thinking
it's a suitable intro of The Count of Monte Cristo for them. It
certainly isn't.
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MARVEL CLASSICS COMICS, issue#17. 1977 (48 pages). Script: Chris Claremont, Art: Dino Castrillo.The 1977 Marvel comics is capably illustrated by Dino Castrillo. Like most comics versions, the events from Dantes landing the Pharaon to his discovery of the treasure is accurate. The second half is missing several subplots, namely Maximilian and Valentine’s love story and the serial poisoner, Madame Villefort. Caderousse and Andrea Cavalcanti return to the story, in a modified manner. Unfortunately, this version adds several pages of extraneous sword fighting, at the expense of plot in order to up the action. Among the non-original-book fates of the villains: Danglars shoots himself, Fernand is simply arrested after his trial and failed swordfight with the Count, and Villefort resigns and slinks away without losing any family members or going mad. I like the way that Castrillo's art differentiates the youthful Dantes from the Count- with the latter appearing with white streaks in his hair and a full, neatly trimmed beard. His physical change does make him plausibly unrecognizable to the people who knew him before as Dantes. Entertaining, but don't base any term papers or class essays on this version.
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CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED, issue #7. 1990 (45 pages). Script: Steven Grant, Art: Dan Spiegel.A refreshing new take on The Count of Monte Cristo, also with the "Classics Illustrated" logo, but produced in 1990. Dan Spiegel's art is excellent, and the faces of the characters are wonderfully expressive. This version starts with Dantes alone in his cell at Chateau D'if, so all of the events prior are only shown in flashback, or mentioned in the captions sprinkled throughout the rest of the pages. This makes the overall story disjointed and hard to follow. And, most notably, since Fernand and Danglars role in Dantes' unjust arrest is not mentioned or shown, the Count doesn't have a good reason to seek revenge on them. But he does anyway. The return of Franz D'Epinay, and seeing the actual kidnapping in Rome is very welcome. The Andrea Cavalcanti sublot, while present, is missing some key pieces such as him being the Count’s creation, and how he gets the information that Villefort is his father. If this version had been expanded by 10 more pages to flesh out the missing pieces and fill the plot holes and properly introduce the characters, this one would be one of the best comics adaptations. This gets a conditional recommendation.
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GANKUTSUOU. 2008 (672 pages). Script: Mahiro Maeda and Yura Ariwara. Art: Mahiro Maeda.
Gankutsuou is a very loose retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo in both anime and manga format. It’s kind of like a very dark reboot, with the story set in the future in space. I found the script to be confusing, and the artwork hard on the eyes. The book is in B&W and backgrounds are murky and the foreground characters are scratchily and crudely drawn, like the drawings of an elementary school child. The sad thing... it’s not lack of artistic talent, as some panels are breathtakingly beautiful. It seems to be a stylistic choice. Dantes/The Count is no longer the main protagonist- he becomes the main antagonist. Abbe Faria is replaced by a demon, Gankutsuou, who offers Dantes freedom from his tortured existence on the prison ship D'if in exchange for his soul. Dantes agrees to be possessed right away (not that he had much of a choice) and goes on to become the mysterious, vampiric Count. So it can be argued that Dantes had lost his free will, and his horrific actions as the Count were not his own. There’s 3 volumes of this, and it only gets more and more disappointing (and despicable and disgusting and perverse) in the later volumes, culminating in an incomplete, ambiguous non-ending in volume 3. The back cover says it's the "final volume", so no 4th book was ever planned, leaving too many things unresolved. What a waste of time! There’s 2 other manga versions that tell a more faithful, more linear story and are far less grim and disturbing. Note: the anime and the manga are not the same. The anime has an ending, the manga does not. 
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Choleric Men- THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (Vol. 1?). 2013 (31 pages). Script: Zdeněk Nevřiva, Art: Kamil Nevřiva.This may have been planned as a very, very long comics series. Too bad the artist/writer never produced more than the first issue (31 pages).Edmond Dantes here resembles Master and Commander-era Russell Crowe. The faces of many of the characters look like something out of a horror comic (they're that creepy) and multiple panels show characters with tiny, disproportionate hands. The artwork is, frankly, not very good at all. Unlike the other comics versions I'd read, where panel space is precious, this one has pages of large, wordless panels and the reader is supposed to figure out what's happening. Things plod along at a snail's pace. Because the Pharaon being spotted by a lookout, and the soldiers signaling the ship needed a WHOLE PAGE. There's an extended flashback to Elba, where Dantes flashes a secret ring and meets Napoleon: 5 pages. At this rate, if the plan was one issue per chapter, then the end result would be over 3000 pages! I can only conclude that this was a dry run- a demo to gauge interest, and the author and artist had decided that it wasn't worth it to continue. The Plot Points Table is almost irrelevant because this issue covered ONE (out of 117) book chapter.
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SEVEN SEAS ENTERTAINMENT (ENA MORIYANA). 2017 (266 pages). Script: Ena Moriyama, Art: Ena Moriyama.Ena Moriyama's version of The Count of Monte Cristo is told in a generous 266 pages. Manga art might not be for everyone, but I enjoyed how explosively emotional the characters are in this style. My particular problem is how Mercedes and Haydee are drawn with childlike faces and adult women's bodies with boobs that look like water filled balloons. Haydee embarrassingly behaves like a needy puppy with the Count, instead of a VIP princess in her own right. Aside from that, Edmond's anger and misery and near-madness during his imprisonment is wonderfully scripted and drawn. Unlike the other comics adaptations, this one shows Dantes as not-exactly-a-protagonist/hero. He has moments of being truly sinister and borderline insane, even after he becomes the wealthy and powerful Count. There are some occasional problems with story flow, where scenes are cut off abruptly to generate suspense, and much, much later, characters explain what happened after-the-fact. The manga also includes a non-canon short story of Haydee having a difficult time adjusting to life with the Count after he bought her from the slave market.
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MANGA CLASSICS (CRYSTAL CHAN/NOKMAN POON). 2017 (404 pages). Script: Crystal Chan, Art: Nokman Poon.This is extremely impressive! At 404 pages, "Manga Classics" demonstrates how to adapt The Count of Monte Cristo into a comics/manga medium. The length gives characters the space and time to develop real personalities. The author, Crystal Chan, had purposely de-emphasized the imprisonment/escape part in order to do justice to the "revenge" part. Due to the generous page count, there are scenes, character discussions and people never before represented in any comic. Ideology! 20 pages for the Dinner at Auteuil! Return to D'if! Countess G-! Emmanuel Herbault! Lucien Debray! (🡄 behaving correctly and not a home-invader or sword fighter)
The artist, Nokman Poon is a superb draftsman, but some of his
character designs are too "androgynous manga-boy"-ish. Albert and
Franz look like they're 15, the Count at age 42 can easily pass for a
youthful and handsome 25. Andrea looks like a babyfaced manga-boy
wimp, and Luigi Vampa and Caderousse have ridiculous little
soul-patches instead of full beards.
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