Douglas Adams is a god, and while some people swear by Hitchhikers as the true measure of his wit, I’ve found that Dirk Gently is perhaps his more genius invention. Because of that, I was wary of what new writers have done with his characters, and wanted to see if they could find the tone and sardonic smirk inherent to his British humor. Let’s see how they did?
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency #5 (IDW Publishing)
Is that a mummy in your pocket or are you just happy to…oh it is? Oh.
I’ll not be catching you up to the entire storyline in this review, but lets say that Dirk’s method of detection is a bit more…earthy-crunchy than you might be expecting. Since everything in Dirk’s view is interconnected, jumping into a investigation on a hunch or a dream is just as valuable as jumping in with pages of evidence.
Thus, a bag picked at random from an airport carousel leads to serial killers, a time-travelling King Ahktenkhamen, and Dirk smack in the middle, as per usual.
There’s literally an Egyptian king from the past in the room, and people are still on Twitter.
Is It Good?
*sigh*
Kind of? It’s not Adams, but scenes like the one above is very close to his hilarity. Keep an eye out for what happens to the “Time-travelling, Power-Mad, Would-Be King” and the cellphone, as something that he could have written were he still alive, Slartibartfast rest his soul.
The artwork..is good, but nothing crazy and the plot feels almost the exact same. There’s just a certain playfulness that seems to be missing, the Egyptian named Craig notwithstanding.
Also, the novels have a very creepy undercurrent that seems to be sanitized here, minus the VERY SCARY PHYSIQUE OF A CERTAIN KING:
This guy’s abs are bigger than my apartment.
HAVING SAID THAT, I still enjoyed this. It’s nice to drop back into some of your old favorites, even if it’s a take on the old goodies. We’re all going to see the new Star Wars when it comes out, right? Same nostalgic take here (with hopefully a better result on screen).
I’ll give it a 6.5 out of 10. Everything was ok, but I’m just not that into it.
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