Graphic Novel Roundup

Title: The Crow: Curare
Author: James O'Barr, Antoine Dode
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: January 21st 2014
Source: Netgalley & IDW Publishing

★★★★

Four Stars.

When a little girl is brutally murdered, a retired policeman makes it his life's goal to track down whoever was responsible for her death and bring them to justice, making him lose things, and possibly his mind, along the way as he travels further and further into a pit of obsession.

When I saw that there was a graphic novel of The Crow available on Netgalley, I knew that I had to have it. I simply adore The Crow, as well as the work of James O'Barr (not to brag, but I have a signed lunch tin. Just saying). I'm happy to say that this book did not at all disappoint.

It has the grit and darkness that any fan of The Crow would come to expect. The story was well paced, and the artwork was haunting enough to pull me in and to focus on closer details of the story. This is a must have for fans of crime and mystery books, fans of a darker kind of graphic novel, and for any one who is as big of a fan of The Crow series as I am.


Title: Star Trek Volume 6: After Darkness
Author: Mike Johnson, Ryan Parrott, Erfan Fajar, Claudia Balboni
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: November 26th 2013
Source: Netgalley & IDW Publishing

★★★

Three Stars

Star Trek Volume Six is a graphic novel that tells the story of the newest revamp of the Star Trek series. There is trouble brewing on the ship, and it is up to the crew that we've all grown to love so much to fix it before it becomes far to late to do so.

I requested this particular graphic novel title because I adore the new imagining of the Star Trek series. My girlfriend (and her whole family...) are all die hard Trekkies from the olden days, but it took me a little bit more convincing to become a fan of this science fiction chronicle (read as: I require the man candy of Christopher Pine and Zachary Quinto). A fan of graphic novels myself, when I saw the two colliding, I knew I needed to read it.

The artwork was nice and well done. I like the coloring and I felt that each panel rightly captured the moment of the story that the authors were trying to convey. Unfortunately, the story itself fell flat for me. I was a bit bored by it, and I found myself not really caring if the problems were fixed or not.

This is a graphic novel worth a read to any die hard Star Trek fan, or even those who are newer fans to the series like me. However, don't expect the story to go too far in depth, or you'll be a bit disappointed.


Title: Signal to Noise
Author: Neil Gaiman), Dave McKean
Format: egalley
Pub. Date: December 10th 2013
Source: Netgalley & Dark Horse Comics

★★★

Three stars

Signal to Noise is a graphic novel that left me much divided on how to rate it, and how to feel. On one hand, the story is brilliantly told. Signal to Noise narrates the struggle of a filmmaker with cancer, whose final masterpiece will go on unseen- except by those of us reading the story. It was a powerful journey, and the window into the director's head was a fascinating one. It was well worth the read, though it is a bit of a slow one.

I wasn't a huge fan of the artwork, however. It wasn't bad, by any means, but I found it to be not to my tastes. It is however filled with great detail, so it's easy to immerse yourself in the setting of the story. But for me, the real art was in the words and the story themselves.