Reviewing the Mail: Week of 12/23/2023

One book this week, again from the library. This one was on the new-fiction shelves, alongside a bunch of novels - the first time I've ever seen a graphic novel there. (I think the current TV adaptation has more than a little to do with that.)

Anyway, I don't have high hopes, but I was willing to take a look:

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: The Interconnectedness of All Kings is a newish (copyright 2016, which is longer ago than I thought) story about the character Douglas Adams created and wrote two novels about in the 1990s. I have no idea why Dirk got a line extension twenty years later, but I guess the wheels of commerce must always grind. This story is written by Chris Ryall, with art by Tony Akins (pencils for two-thirds), Ilias Kyriazis (pencils for the rest), and John Livesay (inks). A project that switches penciler in the middle of a short run is generally not a good sign, but whatever bumps happened during creation of the miniseries a decade ago are clearly baked in now.

The story apparently sees Gently go to San Diego (?!) to handle three cases, which seems deeply random, even given that both the huge North American comics convention and this book's publisher IDW are headquartered there. I guess I'll see if it makes more sense in the reading.