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sociotom's review
5.0
The story is cool enough on its own, but Ben Templesmith really makes it shine. A great companion to the Looking Glass Wars
breeann7's review
4.0
I wish I could give half stars. The story is of course fantastic, but I'm not a fan of the illustrative style, which in a graphic novel is paramount. It grows on you as you read the book. I wish the illustrations were more like the paintings in the book. These look like scribbles, I suppose they might appeal to younger more manly audiences than myself though.
jmshirtz's review
4.0
I very much enjoyed this graphic novel. It reminded me a lot of [b:Unwritten|15791114|Unwritten|Charles Martin|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1360100324s/15791114.jpg|21512694] by [a:Mike Carey|9018|Mike Carey|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1334894864p2/9018.jpg] because of its tie to a literary work. However, I couldn't help feeling like I'd missed the beginning of the story, and after finishing, realized that this is a spin-off of series! Oops! Still, a fascinating idea, and the use of color is inventive. Perhaps some day I'll go back to the real beginning and start all over again.
jenzerbenz's review
3.0
This is a very well illustrated graphic novel. However - I feel it is more of a companion piece than a stand alone. Although I knew the gist of the story - some of the elements and characters were unclear in this graphic novel. I think this piece would be better if you read it after you read the regular novel.
cornerofmadness's review
3.0
This graphic novel interested me by the cover art alone. Then I realized it was a retelling of Alice in Wonderland and had to get it from the library. Then I learned there are novels but more on that later. It’s postulating that Lewis Carrrol had it totally backwards. Alice didn’t fall through the looking glass into Wonderland. She is Princess Alyss OF Wonderland and she’s lost here on earth.
Wonderland has come under attack as the red queen tries to take over her sister’s throne. The White Queen forces Hatter Madigan of the Millinery Corps to take Alyss and run but he loses the girl between worlds. He’s now stalking Earth trying desperately to find his lose princess.
To do so, he’s ‘following the glow’ of imagination since Alyss would be ripe with it and humans are a bit less so. Among his adventures are him losing his hat to an evil magician, him being taken prisoner by the French police and the longest of which brings him into contact with The Baroness who is working with a group who know who and what Madigan is and are working against him. They have a wonderfully creepy device that drains and bottles imagination. On top of all of this, the Red Queen’s minions are after him and Alyss.
I found the storyline to be fascinating and I want to see more of the graphic novels and the source novels. In fact, I might want to see them more. While Ben Templesmith might be an Eisner nominated artist, I hated the art here. I think it may have been purposefully distorted and muddy to make it look depressing and disturbing to the eye but it didn’t work for me. Many times the hands and proportions were something you’d see on a kid’s refrigerator art and surely that had to be intentionally. Then again, it’s this ‘edgy’ art style thing that made me stop collecting American comics almost all together so that does play a role in it.
Wonderland has come under attack as the red queen tries to take over her sister’s throne. The White Queen forces Hatter Madigan of the Millinery Corps to take Alyss and run but he loses the girl between worlds. He’s now stalking Earth trying desperately to find his lose princess.
To do so, he’s ‘following the glow’ of imagination since Alyss would be ripe with it and humans are a bit less so. Among his adventures are him losing his hat to an evil magician, him being taken prisoner by the French police and the longest of which brings him into contact with The Baroness who is working with a group who know who and what Madigan is and are working against him. They have a wonderfully creepy device that drains and bottles imagination. On top of all of this, the Red Queen’s minions are after him and Alyss.
I found the storyline to be fascinating and I want to see more of the graphic novels and the source novels. In fact, I might want to see them more. While Ben Templesmith might be an Eisner nominated artist, I hated the art here. I think it may have been purposefully distorted and muddy to make it look depressing and disturbing to the eye but it didn’t work for me. Many times the hands and proportions were something you’d see on a kid’s refrigerator art and surely that had to be intentionally. Then again, it’s this ‘edgy’ art style thing that made me stop collecting American comics almost all together so that does play a role in it.
bookyjes's review
3.0
This graphic novel reminds me of Coraline. Lots of toothy characters, violence, blood. Fun times. LOL. Not the kind of book I usually pick up. I think I'll try the novels by Beddor instead next time...
colormist's review
2.0
If I had been able to flip through this book, I would not have purchased it and would consider myself $26.00 more wealthy right now. The artwork was a tad painful at times. I spent a lot of time just staring at a frame trying to figure out what the artist was trying to portray. Nothing is very clear. Quite disappointed.
artsybry's review
2.0
This is supposed to be a telling of Hatter M's adventures during all of those years he was searching for Princess Alyss in the real world. The idea is that it is pieced together from his own journals left behind in our world along with random ephemera concerning him like old newspaper articles and what not.
The art in this book was what I found most lacking. The dialog ran like a manga. It was sparse and tried to allow the images to speak instead. The only problem was that the art was so ephemeral it was often hard to piece together the characters actions. Most pages did not have backgrounds, and was set up like an American comic with all squares and an easy to follow format. Again the issue here is that this format should have relied on heavy text, which was absent.
The plot itself was also somewhat lacking. The first attempt he makes at finding Alyss is in Budapest and leads him to a violin prodigy who is kidnapped by some kind of cult who want her glow. The idea was solid, but the execution lacked detail, characterization, and believability (for as much as a fantasy story warrants at least).
All in all I really enjoyed the first book The Looking Glass Wars and had hoped that this iinsallment would add some more depth and tension to the original novel. I thought it might help to fill in the blanks where we were experiencing life with Alyss. Instead though it has only muddled and confused the character of Hatter and lessened him a bit by trivializing him. This added nothing to the world of Wonderland and instead seems to be an attempt on the part of the author to continue to cash in on his ideas.
I do have volume 2 on hold for me at the library though so I will read the next volume and can only hope that it improves over the first installment.
Be aware this will be highly confusing if you have never read the original books by Frank Beddor since the story related here is so disjointed and hole-y.
The art in this book was what I found most lacking. The dialog ran like a manga. It was sparse and tried to allow the images to speak instead. The only problem was that the art was so ephemeral it was often hard to piece together the characters actions. Most pages did not have backgrounds, and was set up like an American comic with all squares and an easy to follow format. Again the issue here is that this format should have relied on heavy text, which was absent.
The plot itself was also somewhat lacking. The first attempt he makes at finding Alyss is in Budapest and leads him to a violin prodigy who is kidnapped by some kind of cult who want her glow. The idea was solid, but the execution lacked detail, characterization, and believability (for as much as a fantasy story warrants at least).
All in all I really enjoyed the first book The Looking Glass Wars and had hoped that this iinsallment would add some more depth and tension to the original novel. I thought it might help to fill in the blanks where we were experiencing life with Alyss. Instead though it has only muddled and confused the character of Hatter and lessened him a bit by trivializing him. This added nothing to the world of Wonderland and instead seems to be an attempt on the part of the author to continue to cash in on his ideas.
I do have volume 2 on hold for me at the library though so I will read the next volume and can only hope that it improves over the first installment.
Be aware this will be highly confusing if you have never read the original books by Frank Beddor since the story related here is so disjointed and hole-y.
alexsbooks_'s review
4.0
I really enjoyed the twist on Alice in Wonderland, I found the story really interesting and I'm really excited to read the rest of the books. I did find some of the drawings a bit confusing to make out and understand what was happening, so I got slightly lost at times, but within the context of the whole story, I was always able to figure it out.