The biggest problem that folks new to the medium seem to encounter is telling instead of showing, and loading the pages too heavily with words when the images can tell the story.
Some of the problems in Troublemaker can probably be blamed on the fact that this is the Evanoviches first stab at scripting a comic, rather than writing prose. The ancillary characters are one-note jokes, from Sam’s mom (who is a cougar – gasp!) to the kidnappers, who never rise above being something for the main cast to run away from. Everyone is painted with a ridiculously broad brush Alex is the sassy, smart cliche of a female lead, Sam is a handsome guy that is clueless about women but can make them melt, Rosa is a drama queen.
Troublemaker existing as the third part of a serialized story is used by the authors as an excuse for offering no character development at all. Since this is the third story in the series, there’s a lot of back story that I didn’t have, and an absent recap page is sorely missed. Sam and Alex are dating, I think, or at least flirt heavily throughout the book. Picking up some clues and taking some absurd logical leaps along the way, the trio tracks Rosa through the swamps of South Florida and the streets of Miami, with fan boat and car chases aplenty. Fearing that the police won’t find Rosa before it’s too late, Alex, Sam and his dog Beans decide to track her down in Miami. At the beginning of the story a mutual friend of theirs named Rosa is kidnapped, the only clue to her whereabouts an explosive Voodoo doll with a cryptic note attached. Set in Miami and South Florida, Troublemaker is the third adventure of NASCAR mechanic Alex Barnaby and driver Sam Hooker. Unfortunately, these pieces ever coalesce, the whole thing is a bit of a mess. So, there are a lot of factors in play behind the scenes of Troublemaker. Jones is credited as the artist, but Ben Dewey did what looks like a lot of legwork to earn a credit for “background pencils.” Well, that’s not entirely true it’s the first half of the third story in a series.The art is by Joëlle Jones … kinda. Though it is Evanovich’s first graphic novel, Troublemaker is actually the third book in a series, following the Barnaby and Hooker books Motor Mouth and Metro Girl.
The author has collaborated before, but often writes as a sole author – this graphic novel script was her first fiction writing with her daughter Alex. The book is the first work in comics by Evanovich, an established and well-loved novelist. Janet Evanovich’s Troublemaker is a strange graphic novel for a whole bunch of reasons.
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