Nancy Drew v7: The Charmed Bracelet Review (original) (raw)

Nancy Drew v7: The Charmed Bracelet
Reviewed by David Rasmussen

When I first heard about the original line of titles from Papercutz, including their Nancy Drew comic line, I was suitably interested. I saw the product, thought this could be a good review, and hoped it would score as well as the "CineManga" style publishing of Totally Spies� sadly, while I am still enthusiastic about reviewing Nancy Drew, it is now with more subdued interest.

Don't get me wrong, I like the artwork to a certain degree, and the story is okay, but the creative team's idea of combining hand-drawn artwork (via computer) and 3D CG elements� at times it really doesn't work for me.

In this volume Nancy is with her dad checking out a large computer chip manufacturer in her hometown, when she's in the right place at the right time for a robbery of a rare experimental chip with a short lifespan (outside of a controlled environment it begins to decay until it becomes useless). She is barely able to start an investigation before she is promptly thrown out by a rather suspicious-looking scientist. Well, so much for the old Nancy Drew charm (maybe that scientist saw the Nancy Drew live-action movie of a year or two ago).

She also has boyfriend troubles (her man may be slowly turning into a bad-boy criminal), charm bracelet troubles (a strange bracelet shows up which sets off a series of robberies about town themed to the items on said charm bracelet) and plot problems (as in you're going to figure out how this will end before it ends).

The writing, as I said, is okay, but it's not okay when the plotting is formulatic (and you can predict how it'll end before it ends). Also the ending was weak (who did it, how the chip was "stolen", etc). I hope other Nancy Drew volumes aren't as weak when it comes to case breakdown.

But my biggest problem is the merger between drawn artwork and the 3D-CG graphics, which often don't compliment each other at all. At times the two merge well, but more often than not they tend to make one another stand out awkwardly, which makes the artwork fail at times. I somehow feel I would have loved it better if it was fully drawn and didn't muddle things with this CG
stuff which isn't really looking all that synched with the drawn artwork.

Could it all change? No. This is Volume 7, and odds are we'll never see a fully hand-drawn Nancy Drew comic from Papercutz, as they're dedicated to this drawn (on computer)/CG intermix.

Otherwise, averageness rules, as the writing is solid yet average in execution.

I do appreciate the artwork, but the lack of total synch between the drawn and CG art brings the score down. Add to the fact that the story is average, a bit predictable, and not a great stand-out blow-you-away read makes this for a rather average title overall.

I wanted better, but this is what I was handed and thus this is the score I'm handing back for work that really could have been better. Nancy Drew Volume 7:
The Charmed Bracelet gets a C+ for at least being better than the average cookie-cutter comic.

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9 April 2008
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