Graphic Novel Review Audrey Niffenegger The Adventuress

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2006 – Jonathon Cape Press – Spoiler alerts The author of The Time Traveller’s Wife novel has also created several excellent comics and graphic novels, including this early work, which was reproduced due to the success of her novel. A young beautiful woman is created by a mysterious alchemist. She is always topless in depiction, presented in black and white art. She is abducted and forced into marriage by an evil count, who she kills by setting fire to his bed on her forced honeymoon. Arrested, she escapes by turning into a moth, and flying away. She turns human again and becomes a lover to Napoleon, who soon claims to be still fighting in the European wars when secretly away with another lover. In despair she kills herself but the cat Napoleon gave her as a present leads her to him and he apologizes to her ghost who then flies away to some unspecified destination. Odd in concept, with a woman rendered purely as sex object for much of her life but given to startling acts of free expression and independence. Ultimately, the effect is a little sad and unsettling. Arthur Chappell