Created by Matt Dinniman
Adapted by Teuagah
Illustrated by Laurel Pursuit Studios
2 stars
I’ll start by saying I have not read any of the Dungeon Crawler Carl novels. I was excited for the graphic novel to get the gist of the books to see if I wanted to give them a try. Unfortunately, this format didn’t work for me.
The first volume collects the first thirteen chapters of the Webtoon.
I found the graphic adaptation incredibly boring. The structure is quite choppy. Things didn’t always flow quite right and I think it’s really dependent on you already knowing the general story.
The graphic version also lacks personality. I didn’t get a sense of who Carl was and while Princess Donut had some good lines, I didn’t really get much personality from her either. Reading other reviews, it seems like part of this is the lack of Carl’s inner monologue in this format.
The visuals were fine. Many of the action sequences were difficult to follow. Some of the game interfaces are really hard to read because of the white text against light backgrounds and teeny tiny blurry lettering. While there were some ridiculous situations, the gritty visuals didn’t help the humor come across for me.
I enjoy LitRPG elements, but just could not get in to this one. May try the first novel eventually (once the holds list dies down at the library) but I think I’m done with the graphic novels.
I wouldn’t recommend this to those who haven’t read the first original novel in the series. It’s probably more enjoyable for those who are already familiar with the story, but I don’t think it’s a particularly good adaptation.