Who Censored Roger Rabbit?: 05/19/12

Who Censored Roger Rabbit? by Gary K Wolf has the honor of being on my to be read list the longest, 28 years (or 3/4 of my life). I bought the book when it was first released at the corner book store when I was nine years old. I was one of only a handful of kids allowed in unsupervised because I had proven myself a bibliophile (although by today's standard's I was only a fledgling).

Other books and obsessions got in my way and the book sat unread at the bottom of my yellow built-in bookshelves. Then in 1988 Who Framed Roger Rabbit came out and by then I had forgotten I even had the book. Instead, I read the sequel, Who P-P-P-lugged Roger Rabbit? which while set in the comic book world was more in line with the film.

After that, college, marriage, grad school, a move to the other end of the state, children, work, and grad school again. Somehow the book stayed with me and when I was cleaning off my shelves, I decided to give it a read.

The basic plot is the same even if the set up is different. Roger Rabbit, star of a comic strip has been accused of a crime. Eddie Valiant, the toughest PI in Los Angeles, wants to find out who's behind it.

The book just didn't take off like the film or the sequel did. Eddie seemed to have trouble finding his voice and the pacing seemed sluggish in parts.

What the book needs is to be reissued as a graphic novel. Or even an illustrated novel. The interplay between humans and comic strip characters needs more play.

In the end I didn't manage to finish the book. I tried on and off for about six months.

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