Graphic Novel Review - 'Enola Holmes: The Case of the Missing Marquess (The Mysteries of Enola Holmes #1)' by Serena Blasco, Nancy Springer

2023 EDIT:

Reread: Still pretty. So pretty, if too short.

I like this and the film, though not so much the original novel, which I have now read.

Final Score: 3.5/5





Original Review:



I wanted to know more about 'Enola Holmes' ever since I saw and enjoyed the film adaptation on Netflix. The original novel by Nancy Springer I currently have and will read soon, but first came the pretty graphic novel. The hardcover in English was hard to find online, but I got it eventually. And it was worth the wait.

The chic watercolour painted art is beautiful, and the characters and plot aren't bad either. The graphic novel is a short introduction to Enola Holmes, the spirited and precocious teenage sister of Sherlock Holmes, and her quest to solve the mystery of her missing mother. It's also a short adaptation of 'The Case of the Missing Marquess'; it's a side case that Enola spontaneously takes while on her way to finding her mother, who may well be a suffragette.

Commentary on living as a girl and a woman in Victorian times is abound. Enola even finds a positive use for wearing the torture device known as the corset - it's not for fainting attractively anymore! she can hide things inside it, and fix it up as a knife proof and bulletproof vest!

Included at the end of this first issue is Enola's scrapbook, containing clues, writings, observations, pictures, and a list of flowers and their meanings - the artwork does these majestic beauties justice!

Enola Holmes, his much younger sister; and Christie Hope from the manga 'Young Miss Holmes', his niece - modernizing Sherlock to have young female relatives who are every bit the detectives he is (and who are good, kind and caring as well as intelligent) is a spitfire and enticing feminist take on the character. Burn in hell, BBC's Sherlock, and Steven Moffat, you sexist and disgrace.

'Enola Holmes: The Case of the Missing Marquess' by Serena Blasco - A very colourful start to the series. A sweet and precious Victorian feminist detective comic.

Final Score: 4/5