I have to confess that I am not a great fan of Sherlock Holmes. I appreciate the character, and I am familiar enough with him through a sort of pop culture osmosis, but that would be about it. As such, it may seem odd that I would pick up this Hound of the Baskervilles graphic novel at all, but there are two key reasons for my decision.

Firstly, I am a great fan of this particular tale, mainly due to the superb 1959 Hammer film adaptation starring Peter Cushing as Holmes. Secondly, I've been enjoying the round-robin collaborative online comic Huzzah!, to which Baskervilles artist Culbard is a regular contributor.

It is always difficult to review an adaptation of another work, as there are always questions of how much of the adaptation's strengths and weakness are drawn from the original source; I choose not to judge The Hound of the Baskervilles graphic novel on its fidelity to the source material, but rather on how it works in its own right--and on the whole it works very well indeed.

Although there are a couple of action sequences, the book is largely made up of scenes of Holmes and Watson engaged in dialogue with the locals. This approach could easily make for a dull read, but the creative team do an excellent job of avoiding such a fate. The snappy dialogue helps a great deal—which, of course, is in part due to Conan Doyle's original prose.

However, upon comparing the graphic novel with the original text, I was surprised to discover how much of the script was abridged, modified, or completely new--and the joins are seamless. I would imagine that if one cannot see where the original ends and the adaptation begins, then the writer can count that as a success.

Culbard's bold, energetic cartooning also contributes to bringing the story to life, and I rather suspect that a more realistic approach would have made things seem flat and short of vitality. That said, the characters do, on occasion, lack animation--particularly in terms of facial expressions, which can sometimes appear a little static. For example, Holmes appears to be afflicted with a perpetual smirk/grimace, and I do question the decision to depict Watson with such a bushy moustache that he essentially has no mouth; it robs him of just a little of his personality, and since he is our protagonist for much of the story, that is a dangerous move.

I am also not sure of the way the artist depicts the moors that are such a large part of the story; he uses an odd approach to texture which makes the landscape look like photographic montage--and the first dramatic establishing shot of Dartmoor may be exactly that. It is a little jarring, and I would have much preferred to see Culbard render the landscape with the same strong lines and bold colours that he uses elsewhere.

If I seem critical of the artwork, it is only because it is so strong in general that the flaws, minor as they are, stand out in stark contrast.

The Cushing film remains my favourite adaptation of the story, and I do confess to preferring Culbard's work on the pulp science fiction of Huzzah! However, this is certainly a strong effort--perhaps not enough to have me hooked, but certainly intrigued, and keen to see how the next in the series, A Study in Scarlet, turns out.

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