There are those favorite book series, ones that you can’t get enough of and hope beyond hope that will get the film treatment. For me that was the Night Angel Trilogy by author Brent Weeks. During my rather long wait I made quite the discovery, they were making a graphic novel. Being something of a comic connoisseur I was more then excited. Then I saw some early character designs and I was sold. It also felt like a step in the right direction, hopefully bringing this book series closer to a film version. So how does the graphic novel capture the essence of the book series?
Story
Having read the novel twice, listened to both an unabridged audio book and a radio dramatization I knew roughly what to expect from the story. Hopefully I can give you a brief synopsis, spoiler-free of course. Please keep in mind, there is a lot more to this story.
The Night Angel Trilogy takes place in the kingdom of Cenaria, a city largely divided between the rich and the poor. There is a King, but no one quite respects him as he’s not exactly the most competent individual. The town is truly run within the shadows by the Sakage, made up of the richest business men and women of the town. They aren’t corrupt per say, but they serve their own interests and they have the kingdom’s most powerful Wetboy (Assasin with magical talents) working for them: Durzo Blint.
While Durzo doesn’t take on apprentices, he made an exception for our main character Azoth who has the talents to become the strongest Wetboy the world has seen, That is, if he can only locate an ancient artifact that has long been forgotten which will unlock his magical talents. Unknowingly, the King of Ceneria just so happens to come into possession of this artifact, and, not aware of it’s power, gives it away as a trinket to his mistress.
Word travels fast as the kingdom of Khalidor is made aware of it’s presence and will stop at nothing to obtain it’s power.
Artwork
When I first heard about the graphic novel, the first concern I had was who was going to be doing the artwork, as the Night Angel Trilogy isn’t exactly easy to classify. There are a lot of cultural influences in the story: Japanese, Arabic and even Medieval. I also wasn’t sure what type of style they were going to go for. Little to be said, Andy MacDonald does an excellent job at capturing the overall style of the series. It blends hyper-realism with anime / manga. To say the least I was very impressed. I really like the attention to detail and to the overall costuming. It seemed to match quite well with what I had already pictured in my mind.
Presentation
The book itself is presented in a hardcover format, with the pages printed on a very high quality gloss paper. It’s really pretty to behold, the artwork itself is in black and white and really pops off the pages. In regards to it’s layout specifically, the way the story is presented there were times I became a little confused. While I was quite happy to see the series not using the typical layout for comics, there were a couple of areas where it could have used some help. The story is told from a variety of perspectives, which means the scenes change quite frequently. Between the black and white artwork and lack of word boxes signifying the change, the story was a bit tough to follow at times. Luckily for me I’m more then familiar with the story so I was able to figure it out pretty quickly.
Overall
If you like fantasy, and are looking for something a little different this could certainly be something you would enjoy. That being said, this book is a little mature and isn’t for all audiences. Certainly something for fans of the series and also a good way I hooking your friends on the Night Angel Trilogy.