Maybe this isn't the wisest thing to admit as a religious studies major but I am not overwhelmingly in touch with many sacred texts - sort-of kind-of familiar but not at any point where the foreign names and places roll off my tongue and I can easily keep track. (Not that I'm against improving my skills and exploring this topic.)
I like the way the artist of Megillat Esther uses the text; it certainly has an "epic" feel to some plot points and there is a great deal top absorb in most panels. I suppose my lingering unease with the story is that I get the impression that there is so much going on in the text and in the images that I'm just not catching.
I understand the pages 30 through 35 is suppose to be humorous - biblical characters on a modern day game show of sorts. It just completely flew over my head because I'm unfamiliar with the underlying joke.
Graphic novels may be a way to catch a new audience and express inside jokes but this one was a turn off for me. I'm simply ill prepared for all the inside jokes so it became overwhelming. Visually beautiful and all but still a bit confusing.
That said, I'm very glad this book with take up two weeks of discussion. I think I'll need that to really "get" this piece of work.
I was in the same boat as you. Most of the comic kind of went right over my head, because I just couldn't pick up on a lot of what was going on. The graphics are so beautifully done, but there was so much going on that I couldn't focus on the story itself. At first I thought, I didn't like this because it was a challenge to me, but after yesterday's discussion I determined comic books are not the same as other novels, and it's ok for them to be different and challenge me in different ways.
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