In Odd We Trust (Manga Review)
“In Odd We Trust” serves as a prequel to the first Odd Thomas novel. The ghost of a young boy appears to Odd, and he embarks on a quest to bring justice to the boy’s killer so that his ghost can move on. Odd’s friend, the Chief of Police Wyatt Porter, share some details of the case, and informs him that the boy’s babysitter is the one that discovered the body. The babysitter turns out to be Sherry Sheldon, a childhood friend of Odd’s girlfriend and soulmate, Stormy Llewellyn. Sherry relates that a stalker has been leaving her disturbing notes for several months, and believes this stalker may be the murderer. Odd and Stormy resolve to catch the stalker before he kills again.
Odd Thomas is a character who first appeared in Dean Koontz’s novel of the same name. He is a twenty-year-old man who lives in the desert town of Pico Mundo, California, and is able to see the spirits of the dead. Odd’s unique ability to see the dead (among other paranormal gifts) complicates his life and forms the basis of the novel. He uses his abilities to aid the lingering spirits who seek him out, and helped by his longtime partner and girlfriend Stormy Llewellyn.
“In Odd We Trust” was especially written as a prequel to the Odd Thomas series by the hugely popular thriller/mystery writer Dean Koontz for this graphic novel. And it is brought to life by Queenie Chan a Chinese-Australian Original English-Language manga artist who was born in 1980. She originally lived in Hong Kong, but in 1986, she and her family moved to Australia. Where she started work on “In Odd We Trust” in early 2008.
Well first off I am a huge fan of Dean Koontz and I have read most of his novels he has written under his own name and under his ghost writer aliases. But I was pretty surprised to find a prequel graphic novel written by him and illustrated by a popular Manga artist. So when I saw it on the Animeworx shelf’s yesterday I just had to get it, to see how well one of my favorite writer’s works translates into a graphic novel.
Let me just say strait off the bat that it is really weird and a bit disconcerting reading a 200 page graphic novel when you are used to a normal 800 page novel that Dean Koontz usually writes. The reason behind this is Dean Koontz has a very descriptive writing style so much so that you can get a pretty clear picture in your head of what he is talking about, without thinking to much. So when I started reading this I already have a preconceived image in my head of what Odd and his girlfriend Stormy looked like. Not to mention the town and the people he interacts with during the course of his adventures.
This might put some people off reading this graphic novel, but if you pass up on this then you will miss a classic Dean Koontz story brought to life by Queenie Chan with her unique art style which heavily draws from the Death Note Manga style. Everything you expect in his story telling is present in the graphic novel from the quirky sense of humor, and the classic banter between Stormy and Odd is also present. And yes even dead Elvis’s ghost makes an appearance during the story, to aid Odd in his quest to save the people of Mundo from a psychotic killer.
If you wanted to get into reading any of Dean Koontz’s books I can highly recommend starting with the Odd Thomas series, and even more so I can recommend reading “In Odd We Trust” as a spring board into the novel series of Odd Thomas. And even if you are a longtime fan of Dean Koontz like me I can still recommend getting this as it’s a totally different experience from the usual Dean Koontz novels, and really enjoyable.
