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A review by 24hourlibrary
Charles Vess' Book of Ballads & Sagas by Charles Vess, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman
2.0
Charles Vess teams up with several authors to compile a series of comics adapting ballads and folklore in The Book of Ballads and Sagas, largely focusing on fantasy and mythology, almost exclusively within historical (or fantasy/pseudo historical) contexts.
With an ink style (that sometimes reminded me of something like wood block cut printing or engraving), Vess accompanies the scripts written by authors (including some by himself). The ballads and sagas seem to come primarily (entirely?) from Western cultures, leaving little room for diversity. One "exception" comes from Lee Smith's story, retelling a ballad of a prince to be married, who chooses a woman described only as "brown" (illustrations suggest South Asian/Middle Eastern) and is, to an extent, a sort of antagonist of the story (bummer, especially since Smith attended my alma mater). I was most excited for Emma Bull's story, which retells a folksong about fox hunting, especially as a huge fan of Bull's "War for the Oaks." This story, too, disappointed some, with an unbalanced plot and no inclusion of the faeries I've seen Bull excel so well with. Famed fantasy author Neil Gaiman also provides a comic, along with other popular names in the fantasy genre. Readers are treated to some of the expected references ("Tam Lin," naturally) as well as ones that, at least to me, were lesser- or not-at-all-known.
One of the last pieces, "Skade," simply went on for too long, including not just the adapted story, but also sketches for further chapters and several pages of prose. This particular story was not (at least for me) especially interesting, and thus felt like a particular drag on the latter half of the book.
Vess is skilled at drawing and is able to suggest a good deal with simple strokes of the pen, but ultimately the panes were too busy for my tastes, and I sometimes struggled to follow the action in a pane. The speech bubbles, too, were difficult to read, with a stylized font that, while it fit the theme of the book well, just made the book harder to get through.
This one just wasn't executed as well as I'd hoped, though I was introduced to some new folklore.
With an ink style (that sometimes reminded me of something like wood block cut printing or engraving), Vess accompanies the scripts written by authors (including some by himself). The ballads and sagas seem to come primarily (entirely?) from Western cultures, leaving little room for diversity. One "exception" comes from Lee Smith's story, retelling a ballad of a prince to be married, who chooses a woman described only as "brown" (illustrations suggest South Asian/Middle Eastern) and is, to an extent, a sort of antagonist of the story (bummer, especially since Smith attended my alma mater). I was most excited for Emma Bull's story, which retells a folksong about fox hunting, especially as a huge fan of Bull's "War for the Oaks." This story, too, disappointed some, with an unbalanced plot and no inclusion of the faeries I've seen Bull excel so well with. Famed fantasy author Neil Gaiman also provides a comic, along with other popular names in the fantasy genre. Readers are treated to some of the expected references ("Tam Lin," naturally) as well as ones that, at least to me, were lesser- or not-at-all-known.
One of the last pieces, "Skade," simply went on for too long, including not just the adapted story, but also sketches for further chapters and several pages of prose. This particular story was not (at least for me) especially interesting, and thus felt like a particular drag on the latter half of the book.
Vess is skilled at drawing and is able to suggest a good deal with simple strokes of the pen, but ultimately the panes were too busy for my tastes, and I sometimes struggled to follow the action in a pane. The speech bubbles, too, were difficult to read, with a stylized font that, while it fit the theme of the book well, just made the book harder to get through.
This one just wasn't executed as well as I'd hoped, though I was introduced to some new folklore.