Kaleidoscopic Sherlock

Everywhere we look these days we see references to Sherlock Holmes. That's not surprising because SelfMadeHero HQ is just a stone's throw from 221b Baker Street and Conan Doyle wrote many of his works just a few doors away. This means we have the Sherlock Holmes Museum, the Sherlock Holmes Collection and the Sherlock Holmes statue with its "lucky" foot practically on our doorstep.

Perhaps it just seems like Sherlock is everywhere at the moment since Steven Moffatt and Mark Gatiss's excellent Sherlock adaptation has started livening up Sunday evenings on BBC1. We particularly enjoyed the first episode A Study in Pink, where Watson and Sherlock become flatmates and go on to stop an 'invisible' serial killer 'who hunts amongst the crowds'. Moffatt and Gatiss have successfully updated Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet with crisp scripting, a typically unstated performance from Martin Freeman as Dr Watson and a suitably Aspergerish Holmes, played by the giraffish and ridiculously named Benedict Cumberbatch.

Confession: we're not fans of Moffatt's Doctor Who (let the hate mail commence) but we absolutely love Mark Gatiss's fiction and the incomparable The League of Gentlemen. But they have come together to create a standout adaptation that has honoured Conan Doyle's legacy and although the second episode of Moffatt and Gatiss's Sherlock, 'The Blind Banker', was a little sluggish, we're still dying to see the final episode in the current series, 'The Great Game', in which Holmes is targeted by a bomber while investigating the violent death of a young civil servant.

While we're at it, we really enjoyed Guy Ritchie's film adaptation, Sherlock Holmes. We don't hold to the view that Ritchie "sexed it up" – Conan Doyle was a writer who entertained and Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law's portrayal of Holmes and Watson brought the detective partnership to life in a way that surprised and delighted us. Michael Robert Johnson and co. also managed to cram in an incredible number of 'nods' to the original texts along the way. Full power to your arm, we say!

Now, we come to graphic novels. SelfMadeHero has its own partnership who have achieved incredible things with Conan Doyle's Sherlock stories, this time in comics form – Ian Edginton & I.N.J. Culbard.

If you're interested in hearing how Edginton and Culbard adapted Conan Doyle into a graphic novel series or indeed how Stephen Moffatt brought his vision of Sherlock to the small screen then you should consider booking tickets for Kaleidoscopic Festival in Wrexham. There are two Sherlock Holmes adaptation events between 9–11th September at Glyndŵr University. Speakers include Stephen Moffat, Sue Vertue, Ian Edginton and I.N.J. Culbard. We recommend that you book your tickets for these unique events here (graphic novel) and here (TV) before they sell out.

The latest title in our Sherlock Holmes series, The Sign of The Four, will be published this Thursday, August 5th and we're delighted with how this third volume has come out. It turns out that we're not the only ones. Here's a little bit from Richard Bruton's review over at the Forbidden Planet International blog:

The third outing for Edginton and Culbard’s most enjoyable Sherlock Holmes adventures and by this point, after my fullsome praise for the first two volumes ('Hound Of The Baskervilles' and 'A Study In Scarlet'), it’s hardly a surprise to find that I thought that 'The Sign Of The Four' was every bit as good as the first two. After all, at this stage, Edginton and Culbard are hardly likely to either change a winning formula or start taking vast liberties with Conan Doyle’s original. Instead they’ve produced another excellent adaptation. Read more... 

Paul Gravett also gave his thoughts on this latest volume over at PaulGravett.com:

Both Holmes and Wilde have been sexed and revved up recently in a superficial, flashy Hollywood remake for mall kidults, whereas this graphic novel stays mostly respectful to the original... I was soon won over. Edgington avoids compromising Doyle’s language and retains period phrases like a ‘mare’s nest’, a ‘chaplet’ or a ‘valetudinarian’ which would probably not survive a more crass editor’s red pencil. 

Culbard always colours with an intelligent eye for setting and mood, from the sickly green of Thaddeus Sholto’s Eastern tobacco to flashbacks tinged in dusty sepia. As for Holmes himself, there’s no deerstalker or pipe here, and his injecting of a ‘seven per cent solution’ is not hidden but opens and closes the book. ... there have been, and it seems always will be, innumerable Sherlock Holmes’s as Guy Ritchie and Mark Gatiss have proved, and Edgington and Culbard are crafting a distinctive portrayal all their own. Read more... 

The Sign of the Four is available to order now from our online store, at Forbidden Planet International stores, Waterstones and independent comics shops nationwide.