Tag: Graphic Novels (31-35 of 35)

May 26 2010 01:25 PM ET

'Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne': An interview with writer Grant Morrison

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Grant Morrison is currently writing a six-issue miniseries, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne (DC Comics), that some consider one of the comic-book events of the year. Being touted as an event-creator is something this 50 year-old, Scottish-born writer must be used to by now. Morrison’s knack for rich conversational dialogue and intricately knotted plotting has garnered raves since the 1980s for everything from his big hits (the current, superb Batman and Robin series) to cult favorites (the your-head-will-explode The Invisibles).

I spoke to Morrison about Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, the second issue of which has just arrived in comic-book stores. There’s also news about a BBC sci-fi TV project Morrison is working on. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 19 2010 01:48 PM ET

Comic books you need to read: 'DMZ'

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DMZ (Vertigo/DC) is an extremely clever comic book series that regularly transcends mere cleverness. Created by writer-artist Brian Wood, it presents a future New York City as a demilitarized zone surrounded by a civil war. The combatants are the federal government versus the “Free States Army.”

The book’s hero, Matty Roth, began the series a callow photo-journalism intern but has developed into a shrewd go-between and chronicler of the opposing sides.

The new 50th issue of DMZ is a good place to hop into the series if you haven’t read it before, presenting a series of vignettes that touch on various major characters and plotlines. You can also read various trade-paperback collections of the series.

DMZ takes what could have been a trite notion — the idea of “bringing the war home” literally, by turning America into a war zone similar to those in Iraq or Afghanistan– and on the strength of a complex imagination, turns it into a comic book that needs no superheroics, because the heroism is performed by ordinary people you come to care about quickly.

Jan 20 2010 07:00 AM ET

Exclusive: Twilight, The Graphic Novel

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I’m delighted to announce, exclusively, that Yen Press will publish Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1 on March 16, with a first printing of 350,000 copies.  Here’s a first glimpse at the book’s cover, as well as an exclusive peek at one of its panels (for a full ten-page excerpt, and the entire Q&A with Stephenie Meyer, see the issue of EW that goes on sale this Friday).

What strikes me, looking at the book, is how faithfully, and how beautifully, artist Young Kim has translated Meyer’s original vision. Kim, who has a fine arts background—in fact, this is her first foray into graphic novels—didn’t just read the book; she absorbed it. Her Bella is the Bella I had in my mind’s eye the first time I read Twilight; her Edward is the Edward I always imagined. It took me back to reading Twilight pre-movie: Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson faded into the background.

Meyer talked to us about all this, and more. Here are a few snippets from our conversation:

The text of your original novel is boiled down so carefully that it doesn’t feel like anything is missing. Were you the one who did that?

I was definitely involved.  I didn’t do the original “script” for the book, so to speak.  But when I got the dialogue with the images, I did a lot of tinkering. In a couple of places, I asked for missing scenes to be inserted.  For example, the conversation in the car that Bella and Edward have after she faints in Biology.

How does the feeling of reading the graphic novel compare to that of reading the original? Does it bring something new to the experience for you?

For me, it takes me back to the days when I was writing Twilight.  It’s been a while since I was really able to read Twilight; there is so much baggage attached to that book for me now.  It seems like all I can see are the mistakes in the writing.  Reading Young’s version brought me back to the feeling I had when I was writing and it was just me and the characters again.  I love that.  I thank her for it.

When this project is done, are you done with Twilight?

I can’t say that I am done with Twilight forever.  I’m not working on anything new Twilight-related now, and probably not for a while.  But there’s still a possibility that I’ll go back and close some of the open doors.

What do you think, Twihards? Are you excited about this?

Aug 27 2009 03:58 PM ET

Ian Rankin's new graphic novel: Inspector Rebus, meet John Constantine

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Fans of Scottish thriller writer Ian Rankin’s bestselling Inspector Rebus series will be curious and happy, I think, with Rankin’s new foray into the graphic novel. He’s written a down-and-dirty look at reality TV in Dark Entries, published in hardcover by DC Comics’ Vertigo Crime imprint.

While Rebus doesn’t appear in Dark Entries, Rankin has tackled a similarly smart/cynical/wisecracking character here, one familiar to fans of the comic book Hellblazer: the dour, chain-smoking detective who dabbles in the occult, John Constantine. The clever plot involves Constantine hired by the producers of a hit reality show called Haunted Mansions because the set appears to be, well, haunted.

What results is a locked-room mystery that owes a little to Agatha Christie, black-and-white art by Werther Dell’Edera that is both comic-strip efficient and suitably noir. Rankin is that rare writer who can write lines like, “The mansion has been breached. Hell has broken in,” and not have them seem melodramatic, but, rather, tough-guy terse. That, plus the Scottish slang (“They can shove it up their jacksies”) makes Dark Entries a fun, frenetic read for the dark final days of summer.

Jul 22 2009 11:46 AM ET

'Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter': A great new graphic novel

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Some of us think Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008) wrote some of the finest hardboiled fiction ever under the psuedonym Richard Stark, telling tales of Parker, a remorseless criminal so confidently tough, you can’t help but root for him. And some of us also think adapting literature — even pop lit like thrillers — as “graphic novels” is almost always a mistake.

How nice it is to be surprised: Artist Darwyn Cooke’s brand-new rendering of the very first Parker novel, 1962′s The Hunter, is joltingly good.

On sale today, Richard Stark’s The Hunter, “adapted and illustrated by Darwyn Cooke,” as it says on the cover, is a tremendous feat of compression and interpretation. When Westlake wrote as Richard Stark, he wrote starkly, using minimal description and the tersest dialogue. Cooke, perhaps best known for his work on DC: The New Frontier and another remarkable adaptation, his reinvention of Will Eisner’s The Spirit, somehow pares down the story of The Hunter even more radically than the Stark novel.

The story is simple: Parker is out for revenge against someone who double-crossed and robbed him. Cooke’s drawings are severe slashes that render Parker’s face as a hatchet with expression; the women in the book have big, soft eyes and plush bodies; Parker’s male foes are beady-eyed smart-alecks who never truly comprehend Parker’s controlled fury.

Cooke may have been helped by The Hunter‘s tightly-constructed action plot. (It was nearly ready-made to become a screenplay when director John Boorman turned it into the 1967 pop-art thriller Point Blank, starring Lee Marvin.) (There was also a lousy 1999 Mel Gibson movie based on it, Payback.) But only a first-rate interpreter such as Cooke could give this book-length comic strip its relentless momentum and bone-dry humor.

Let’s hope this is the first in a series of Parker/Cooke adventures from publisher IDW Publishing.

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