A Christmas Carol: The Night That Changed the Life of Eliza Scrooge Review: Not Quite the Same

Charles Dickens’s “ A Christmas Carol” has been told, retold and adapted so many times that one gets dizzy just looking at all of them. Just few hundred won’t anybody, right? One of these adaptations is a comic retelling called “A Christmas Carol: The Night That Changed the Life of Eliza Scrooge.”

It’s the classic story we all know, except Scrooge’s gender has been swapped, her first name is Elizabeth (Eliza for short), and instead of owning a counting house she owns a mercantile and textile factory. The only other version of “A Christmas Carol” where Scrooge is female was 2000’s “A Diva’s Christmas Carol” with Vanessa Williams which had Scrooge as a pop singer and set in modern-day. Here, Rod Espinosa decides to do a direct retelling with the only changes being those already stated.

The result is just that: it’s “A Christmas Carol” with Scrooge as a female. The only minor story changes are the workers have to work late at Scrooge’s factory, people refer to Scrooge in the feminine article and Scrooge’s biggest obstacle in life was proving herself in a male dominated world. Not much a game changer there.

Although, to be fair, the added scenes and dialogue do add some dimension and show how a female Scrooge would be like which is pretty interesting in and of itself even though these scenes alter the story very little.

The artwork is very static in its quality. It constantly goes from being awe inspiringly excellent to plain awful. It’s not like the character designs or the backgrounds are bad, Eliza looks just like how you’d think an arrogant, stingy rich dress designer would look like in her outrageous outfits. It’s just that Espinosa does not keep the quality of his art steady. There are times where the characters faces nice and others really ugly, the character models well drawn and others the characters look like they’re out of a Picasso painting. It gets irritating after a while.

Though “A Christmas Carol: The Night That Changed the Life of Eliza Scrooge” may not break any ground it’s still “A Christmas Carol.” Anyone who loves the story, a Dickens fan or just wants a different take of Scrooge will pick this up and try to get used to the static artwork. No visit from Jacob Marley or the Three Spirits necessary.