Okay, say what you will about me, but I enjoyed watching Charmed. It wasn’t the best series, but it was a really fun, entertaining series. Sure, the last season was utterly pointless, but whatever. The series allowed me to actually appreciate that while Dr. Doom’s portrayal wasn’t the best in the Fantastic Four movies, I never blamed Julian McMahon, who I thought did an okay job with what he was given. So, when I saw there was a Charmed comic book, I decided to give it a look.
When creating something that is based off of something else originally, it is sad to say, but the visuals are often very important. People who know me know that visuals, while the most flashy thing aren’t really the most important part of a comic, at least for me. If a comic has decent art with a great story, I’ll like it a lot more than great art with a bad or decent story. Still, when changing media, if you don’t keep the visuals the same as the original, then you run the risk of making your version unrecognizable to the people who will jump media (who will also probably be your biggest audience). The Last Airbender failed in that, for me at least, by making a lot of the characters white and not keeping with Iroh’s weight or Zhao’s intimidation or, hell, Aang’s tattoos. Those in and of themselves made me dislike the movie. So how does Charmed do in that department?
Let me just start off by saying that the art on the covers works well. The art is good, and while a generic cover that does nothing to portray the inside, shows you that it is a comic about Charmed, with Piper, Phoebe and Paige all right there on the cover, easily recognizable to fans of the series. That’s all because they look like Holly Marie-Combs, Alyssa Milano and Rose McGowan right there on the cover. The art inside? Not so much. I was able to recognize Piper barely, just because her hairstyle is distinct enough that it was recognizable. Phoebe’s hair color changes throughout the comic, through various shades of brown, some of them making it appear almost blonde. Paige just looks nothing like Rose McGowan, and the only reason I am able to tell who it is is because they mention her name. Leo wasn’t recognizable either, so, yeah, woohoo.
Aside from the non-recognition visually, the characters themselves worked pretty well. When there are changes to someone’s life, the personality is bound to change at least slightly, so while the characters might not be exactly the same as in the series, they’ve been laid back pretty well, considering the end of the series ending evil from doing a bunch of stuff. So, they are able to relax with their kids, who they now have, and help them to grow up. All in all, that works pretty well, so while the art doesn’t portray the characters, the writing at least manages to.
As for the plot, well, this issue is broken up into three main stories. The first has to do with Piper and Phoebe going to the funeral of the first innocent they ever saved, Brittany, back from the second episode of the series. The second has to do with Paige going to recruit a young witch who is just starting to develop his powers and bring him to Magic School. The third has to do with two evil beings (a warlock, and either a demon or something else) trying to do something in the Underworld.
The first is a good callback to the second episode of the series, and is able to show that while they are superpowered witches who have saved the world from destruction many times, they still are human and they still think about all the individual innocents they have saved. It was something that I appreciated from the show, the humanity behind it all, and this is able to really emphasize the humanity, as death is something we all will eventually have in common, so dealing with death is something worthwhile.
The second really got me in the mindset of Paige. While it didn’t look very much like Paige in the art, the whole manner of being that she had, from the attire she wore, to the way she stood, to the way she dealt with the idiotic jock all made me think, in my mind’s eye, of Paige. In my mind, I could see Paige dealing with him, looking and acting like Paige from the TV show (or looking like Rose McGowan, in other words). It was another effectively written plot that worked well with the show and transitioning to a different media.
The third continues the plot of the evil people from the first issue, where they found their way into the Underworld. Like the show, it effectively showed you the villains working on their plan in the Underworld without having the sisters aware of anything going on, or revealing everything the villains were doing. If anything, this is the plot that intrigues me the most, partly because it is not even close to being explained yet, and is the part that has the villains, meaning that when the sisters finally interact with them, there can be some good fight scenes, especially given that they are not limited by acting and special effects, having just the art as the limitation.
Apart from the characters being unrecognizable, the art is able to do a decent job of portraying the characters and the world and wouldn’t be a concern of mine if not for the whole “based off of actresses” thing that makes the art awkward. While not some of my favorite art in comics, it is neither too cratoony to be taken seriously, nor too realistic to allow for all the magic involved. Some of the faces seem stiff and too general, but the art isn’t something that makes the comic unreadable, so it has that going for it. I would never praise the art, but I won’t say it is too bad.
All in all, I really do like this issue of Charmed, partly because it takes me back to the show that I liked watching, and really captures a lot of the spirit of Charmed while adding in its own flair and plot. I’d recommend that people who have watched and enjoyed the show to at least try the comic, to see if it is something they would want more of (and to try and ignore that the characters look different). To people who haven’t watched the show, the characters’ looks are the least of your concerns, so I would ignore that and just see if the story seems interesting. In general Charmed is about three witches who go around fighting demons and evil while trying to live their lives out, so if you want to try and see what that is like, then try it by all means. I know that I’d recommend reading the comic, as while it doesn’t capture the faces of the Charmed Ones, it does capture their spirit and the spirit of the show.
