Campfire's _Moby Dick_

Another admirable and entertaining effort from Campfire, Moby Dick features the elements most adaptations focus upon: the action, the whaling, the obsession. Some of the nuance and innuendo makes it into this adaptation, but mostly we get the "nautical action film" version.

That being said, it's a good read. I hate that it ends so abruptly. The last encounter with the white whale and its results are too compressed for my taste, especially given the decent pacing of the story up to that point, but Ishmael's character is well-developed, as are Queequeg, Starbuck and Ahab. The art fits the story perfectly, especially the rough lines and hoary hatchings from artist Lalit Kumar Sing, who gives the rough-and-tumble seamen just the right look.

I'm not sure if Moby Dick gets much attention at the secondary level anymore. Even there, my guess is several hundred pages are removed or ignored. But, if a teacher does use Moby Dick, this text would be an excellent accompaniment. As with all the Campfire books, it's not just an adaptation. There is information about Herman Melville's life and some very interesting illustrated information about whaling, whale ships, and Mocha Dick, the real-life whale that inspired the story.

Though its compression flaws towards its wrap-up dissatisfied me, I was impressed with this effort overall.