Customer Reviews

Vic and Blood: The Continuing Adventures of a Boy and His Dog : A Graphic Novel

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

 

 

Sure, Harlan Ellison wrote the classic stories, but my first exposure to the adventures of Vic and Blood came through Richard Corben's comic adaptations. I read Ellison's stories later and was happy to find that the comics were very faithful adaptations. It's good to see, therefore, that the iBooks paperback edition of VIC & BLOOD - THE CONTINUING ADVENTURES OF A BOY & HIS DOG gives you the chance to compare the comics with the original stories, all in one book! You get both comic and text versions of "Eggsucker", "A Boy and His Dog", and "Run Spot Run", and the texts are accompanied by a handfull of highly detailed Corben illustrations, along with sidebar quotes from Blood (The Wit and Wisdom of Blood). It's a very attractive package, led off with a humorous introduction by Ellison that touches on his supposed upcoming novel BLOOD'S A ROVER (will we ever see it? I can only hope). While this type of literature might not be everyone's cup of tea, I give this book 5 stars for presentation, as well as its appeal to fans of Ellison and Corben - they will love it.

If you love "A Boy and His Dog", you will LOVE this book. Great stories well done in a comic style. Most women hate this series for some reason :). A wonderful read. Ellison is at his dark, bitter best, and the drawings are great.

For me Richard Corben is the most original artist in the field. While his older work is certainly inspired by the old EC horror and crime masters, his style and aesthetic became (during the late 70's) something completely unique. His style and skill allow him to slip from realistic to iconic (or cartoony) without any of it seeming out of place. His characters have a presence and weight to them that I have seen no other comic book artist achieve. The effect is sometimes unnerving and bizzare but always engrossing.

Harlan Ellison has a similiar ability with prose. He can go from comical to downright heartbreaking without missing a beat. A Boy and His Dog is a great showcase of Ellisons ability in this respect. The combination of he and Corben is perfectly suited for this story of humor and horror on a post apocalyptic landscape. An evironment Corben seems to have mastered (see his brilliant Mutant World, recent Punisher comic, or short story An Angel Shy of Hell for other examples).

In an industry full of cheesy clenched-teeth hunched-over superheroes, or generic drawn-from-digital-photos-of-artists-friends characters and Mike Mignola rip off's it's refreshing to look at a work of art done by two rebel/masters who made their own masterpiece on their own terms with their own aesthetic.

I understand Ellisons' wanting to be rid of these characters. It's an old story, a writer or an actor gets caught up in a series or a role and, from then on, it's all the base wants from him. It happened to Conan Doyle, Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, Milburn Stone, the list is endless. Doyle attempted to kill off Holmes at one point, but eventually brought him back.

If Holmes could survive, so could Vic. Examine the situation carefully, and remember that it's taking place in a gritty, sci-fi world, which is heavily irradiated and in which mutants proliferate. So, we've got a teenaged boy, with a lot of emotional baggage, who gets bitten by a radioactive spider. Would death be the single, inevitable result? I think not!

"Did he live? Listen, Bud,
There he goes with his dog named Blood!"

Face front, true believer! 'Nuff said!