Customer Reviews

Magician Apprentice - Volume 1 (Magician Apprentice (Numbered)) (v. 1)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Like many people, I look with a certain amount of dread when books I love get turned into movies. Likewise, the idea of such books being turned into graphic novels carries with it some fear, as the singular vision of an author is diffused through the intervention of the perspectives of legions of others. Yet in the case of Feist's "Magician's Apprentice" at the first look one can tell how closely the author has guarded the vision of his first novel in his much loved world of Mikidemia. Every page reveals the people and places of the author's world as he imagined them in brilliant color, brining a whole new life to a work which brought many readers to fantasy. Even readers who have enjoyed the "Riftwar Books" but have little interest in graphic novels are sure to enjoy the experience.

The story is great, if you've read the original book Magician:Apprentice, you will like these books a lot! (seriously, a lot, you should buy it!). However, the bad news: One huge annoyance/surprise. chapter 1-3 has a different artist than chapter 4-6. What's worse, you can really really tell - the ch4-6 artist didn't copy the ch1-3 artist's style. They completely dumped the very stylized look of Carline for example! They used much thicker pens! (so sad). This makes for a very jarring experience when you turn the page and discover you do not recognize the characters anymore. The ch 4-6 art is less detailed: has thicker lines, and because of this everything looks more bubbly, and with less detail colored in, looks like hazy watercolor with thick pens drawn over top. The sophisticated styling of the characters are completely lost in ch4-6. All that said. The story is great, and if you get used to (or overlook) the ch4-6 art style, you'll really love this book. the art style in ch1-3 is great, very sophisticated, very detailed, very stylized, for example, borric and carline look amazing (of course they're all totally watered down in ch4-6, no more style, looks like a kids quickly drawn anime, not as bad as dragonball z, but..). it's a tragedy they didn't keep the same artist all the way through. let's hope they get him back for the remaining books, or that magically the 1st artist redoes/finishes the art in this book. I removed 1 star for the art change and inability to match the art style. But the book is really cool, and I love seeing the world of magician and the riftwar at last.

Feists novels all are very amazing reads and I couldn't wait to see the adaptation into a graphic novel. I was very impressed with the beginning chapters. The pictures were very well drawn with vivid color and detail. As I have read all of Feists books, the artists depiction of the characters seemed dead-on and actually showed growth as the pages turned. Chapters 4-6 on the other hand made the main characters seem almost as children with much less detail and color. Even the characters expressions seemed less confident, and age progression was way off following the story line. Reading the second half was very disappointing as far as the drawings went. Overall very worth purchasing if only for the first half. Hopefully as these graphic novels continue, the better artist will take over!

A Marvel adaptation of what appears to be part of the first book, which was split in half in the USA it seems, and only half of that, to start with. So, going to be an expensive way to get the whole story.

Other than that, it is pretty well done, and especially the firedrake, Fantus, very cool.

One major art problem is that there is a shift from the first half to the second. Whereas Pug and Tomas at the start are shown aging slightly as they move into later teenagerhood, the second half style changes them to look more like they are 10 or so again at times, and shorter, too, compared to the long, skinny slim hipped pillow look given to everyone by the first artist.

This was really really good. This was my first trial run with a graphic novel outside of Marvel/DC/Image etc. I was really impressed with the character development and pacing of this story. Love the dynamic of the 2 main characters being so different but so alike. Pug- the magician and his best friend Thomas the brute soldier type. No doubt these two are going to compliment eachother when they start fighting enemies. Can't read to purchase vol.2 when it becomes available.

Feist wrote an excellent book with "Magician Apprentice" and the graphic novel truly brought it to life for me in a way I have not imagined when I first read the novel in text. My only gripe about this rendition is the variation in artistic styles from chapter to chapter in the graphic novel. Other than that it was well worth the second read.