Lilah Sturges

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/doctor-who-a-fairytale-life-by-lilah-sturges-kel...

This is an enjoyable enough fantasy-world-actually-a-theme-park story, with the Doctor and Amy liberating the oppressed. The art by Kelly Yates is seriously below par though, with Amy much more freckled than the real Karen Gillan and the Doctor often looking like someone else entirely. This was early in the Eleventh Doctor era, so perhaps the lead characters’ images were not well communicated to the artist, but it’s a barrier to enjoyment. There are some nice covers by Bill Willingham though.… (more)

The comic of the movie of the novel? Really?? This seems spectacularly pointless. Sure, do a comic of the original novel and unleash the visual imagination of Frank Herbert in a way that can't be captured by another medium. (And I believe there are some comics directly based on the novel.) But why try to capture the visual imagination of a film of a novel on the page? It seems pointless—and once you read it, you realize it is pointless. This vastly accelerated set of highlights with art that essentially copies film stills gives you little sense of the grandeur of either film or novel.… (more)

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/hugos-2023-best-graphic-story-or-comic/

This is quite nicely done, but lacks both the visual grandeur of the film and the narrative detail of the book (even though of course it has more narrative detail than the film, and more visual grandeur than the book).… (more)

I didn’t know there were any graphic novels based on The Magicians, until I found this one at a library sale. I liked reading it well enough, but there were some disappointments. It’s basically the first novel, just told from Alice’s point of view. Except- it doesn’t really give you any more information on Alice, her background, what she was thinking, any new tidbits to the story, nope. I did like that Quentin wasn’t the centerpiece, I find Alice much more relatable, but still. Visually, it was okay- not all the characters were as I had pictured them from the novel (especially Penny- his personality seemed right, his appearance not really)- but the scenes of the magic school, the place-between-worlds, the landscapes in Fillory, those were pretty close to how I had imagined. The ending felt a muddle. Huge chunks of the novel are left out entirely, or condensed down to just a few panels here- which makes sense, as it’s a much shorter page count- this didn’t bother me too much but I think if you haven’t read the original, you’ll be missing a lot of what’s going on and why things happen. Don’t get me wrong, there’s parts I liked. I especially liked more explanations of the original Chatwin, of the sister who hid the last button, of the novel series that led these kids to want to go to Fillory in the first place (wishing deeply all over again that it was a real set of books!) If anything, refreshing my memory by reading this graphic novel adaptation, made me want to read The Magicians series all over again, and maybe also Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell too, because that one has a similar vibe- albeit different timeframe and setting entirely.… (more)