Twilight: The graphic novel

April 11. 2010, under Blogr with No Comments

I bought the book because I thought the artwork was beautiful and I was really curious to see the book in illustrated form. I read a few online reviews and there are a few things I completely agree with.

The speech bubbles I tried to ignore the oversized and badly placed bubbles but it was hard. It really affects the fluidity of the story because it’s so distracting to see a speech bubble over the character’s faces when there’s enough space in the background and the odd negative spaces in some of the pages.

Missing speech I kinda knew the graphic novel wasn’t going to include ALL the text since most things can be illustrated like descriptions. That seems obvious in this kind of medium but I found myself completing the sentences mentally. It’s a minor detail really. Nothing of importance was left out and that’s what really matters but it changes the tone in some of the situations.

The movies are worse in this comparison with the books since the films stray off in SO many aspects yet hold their ground as inspirations from the book as opposed to true renditions. Taking this into consideration the graphic novel is really cute and nice to see the characters in a more accurate representation of Stephenie Meyer’s thoughts. It would’ve been nice to have a wordless version for the more hardcore fans or at least just include the most memorable quotes. I think I would’ve liked that better than the odd conversation bubbles. The art is self sufficient to carry the story, maybe less was more.

In conclusion I’m debating whether I should sell the book or not. I really like the artwork but most of the text is too detracting. I prefer reading the novel and imagining the pictures in my head. It’s a good thing I have a creative mind, I visualize things very easily. Of course not everyone imagines things the same way so my opinion is in no way objective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, ne? I can only hope Yen Press learns from their mistake in letting something so simple as proper conversation placement slip up like it did, it’s pretty disturbing. Maybe Volume 2 will be better.