Steven Brust's Jhereg - The Graphic Novel [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Alan Zelenetz (Author), John Pierard (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1990

comic adaption of a great fantasy book

Product Details

• Paperback: 48 pages
• Publisher: Epic Comics (1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871356740
• ISBN-13: 978-0871356741
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,048,847 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Unbelievably weak; not worth the 23 pages it's printed on., November 29, 2004

By 

Gen Falel "Gen" (Hawaii) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Steven Brust's Jhereg - The Graphic Novel (Paperback)

You are here because you read Steven Brust's work, started hungrily seeking anything of his you could find, and found out there was a graphic novel.

You are now quite eager to read of Vlad Taltos in that format as well. Maybe the rendition was fabulous. Maybe it was merely good. Maybe, in fact, it was average and thus not worth scraping up so many sheckels as it will take to find a used copy.

I am very sorry to say that it would need some improvement to even reach a grade of "poor," and that this work would be overpriced at half of the nine bucks that it originally cost.

Fault #1: This "Graphic Novel" is 46 pages long. That's right; 23 pieces of paper wrapped in a cover. The pages are so few that the publisher did not even bother to number them, and the fact that I counted them is testament to how small this 'novel' is.

Fault #2: This comic-book sized work, alas, attempts to encompass the entirety of the fully novel-sized book _Jhereg_, thus ending up with a literary flair and story arc more reminescent of a brief outline (not even a 'Cliff's Notes') than an actual story.

Fault #3: If Alan Zelenetz and John Pierard are fans of Brust's work or even actually enjoyed the novel they have sought to capture in graphic format, no evidence of said enjoyment comes through in the novel itself. More accuracy, attention to detail, artistic integrity, and story depth are standard fare in an issue of a "Conan" comic. "Spellbreaker" becomes "Spellbinder", Morrolan grows a beard, Sethra becomes a hag, and the artistic style is less that of art than that of an illustrator of children's books who has lost all but the most garish of his or her water colors.

I cannot conceive of an audience that would appreciate this work. Someone who desired to see magic would find that the magic is humdrum and commonplace. Someone who desired to see gothic darkness would find that even deaths become as significant as roadside litter even when important. Breasts and nudity are not uncommon, but fail to be as titillating or well-drawn as that of elementary-school graffiti.

Indeed, the only reason I give this two stars instead of the single star that it very nearly deserves is that the author does manage to convey some small (very small) sense of the personalities of the people involved, and that the artist occasionally manages to portray a scene or situation in a way that is, if not brilliant, at least well done.

And in any case, it may be that neither the author nor the artist had any say in how ridiculously, moronically, foolishly short this work was. The drooling idiot who decided to portray a solid inch of well-written story (and the start of an epic) in fewer pages than the average insurance-company circular should be prevented from having the opportunity to ever make such a decision again.

Interlibrary loan this if you must read it. Otherwise, spare yourself; you could draw a better comic yourself on three sheets of paper. In crayon. With your left hand. In the dark. Drunk.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps best for the Brust fan, November 12, 2008

By 

wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Steven Brust's Jhereg - The Graphic Novel (Paperback)

Steven Brust's fantasy novels created a rich world, with plenty of room for narrative exploration and adventure. Characters, magical elements, and a smart-mouthed mini-dragon offered readers plenty of fantastic imagery.

It just didn't come together for me in this graphic form. The story adaptation lacked a bit - parts of the mythos might remain opaque to viewers not already familiar with Brust's stories. I could live with that, but the watercolor renderings just weren't strong enough to bring it to life for me. John J. Muth's Moonshadow, for example, shows just how literal and expressive watercolor can be. This, on the other hand, comes across as merely competent.

The story pulls the reader in and the artwork carries the reader along, but I can't say that either stands out. The whole, unfortunately, wasn't quite the sum of the parts.

-- wiredweird