The Colour of Magic & The Light Fantastic / Terry Pratchett

The Colour of Magic & The Light Fantastic
(graphic novels)

category: fantasy, humour, author:

Terry Pratchett

illustrated by Steven Ross

book 1 & 2 of Discworld
original copyright 1991/92

read in December 2011 & January 2012

Agamedes' opinion: 6 out of 10: read to pass the time

This is a "graphic novel" -- a comic book -- version of two Discworld books. I've reviewed The Colour of Magic as a text novel. And I've read the text original of The Light Fantastic, before I began these reviews.

How does the graphic compare to the text?

Poorly.

The story of Colour suffers from what I shall now name as, the Rincewind effect: a loser, with the entire world out to get him. This effect detracts from the humour. It makes it hard to enjoy reading, when you know that there will not be a happy ending for the hero... That's my view... I'm a softie.

Fantastic seems to almost be going the same way... but it is not!

In my review of Magic, a reader posted a comment:

=Tamar May 25, 2011 09:03 AM
Don't ignore The Light Fantastic.
Rincewind develops significantly in that book, #2 in the series, immediately after The Colour of Magic.

And Tamar is absolutely correct ! Thank you !

For a while, in Fantastic, Rincewind looks as though he is going to finish a poor last. Yet he is able to beat the odds. Not only that -- Rincewind takes positive steps, and succeeds!

What a pleasure to read :-) And, having read the comic version, I now remember reading the text original. And having the same pang of pleasure, as the hero tries -- and wins.

So my rating for The Light Fantastic would be, 08: really quite good.

Except that this is the graphic version.

The graphic novel has captured a lot of the original humour and excitement. A lot has also been lost. If you have trouble following a Pratchett novel -- the graphic version is even more confusing.

Discworld books tend to have a lot of threads of action. Apparently unrelated. Finally, in the last few pages, they all come together.

These graphic versions have a more unified plot. But with holes. Holes due largely to the constraints of space and the graphic format. Within these constraints, the adaptation works well.

As a coherent story, I prefer the text novels.

And the illustrations are disappointing...

Complex, fun, detailed... Just too realistic.

The human characters are human. Okay, that sounds fine. But I somehow expect them to be more than human. I can't explain it better than that. And I certainly could not draw it myself! But I find that the realism of the characters somehow does not fit with the fuzzy images in my own mind.

And then there's Twoflower, the tourist.

Look, in the books he's clearly Chinese. Or, at least, the Discworld equivalent.

Big glasses do not make Chinese.

Is the illustrator trying to be politically correct? Or am I missing something...

Twoflower-the-standard-Caucasian-but-with-glasses-and-a-big-hat... just does not work. It's more of the too-real-to-be-true illustration in the book.

Ah well.

It was worth seeing how Discworld translates to a graphic novel. Last week I enjoyed Going Postal translated to a tv movie. (Sorry, the link is to a review of the book, not the movie.)

The movie worked. The graphic novel... well... read the book.

..o0o..

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