A review by nickdleblanc
The Hobbit: Graphic Novel by Chuck Dixon

3.0

This book was my introduction to The Hobbit in 1990 when my father read it to me and showed me all of the beautifully drawn and colored images. It’s a great adaptation, and a wonderful way to introduce young kids to the material. Also, if you’re like me and want to dip back into the world of Tolkien without taking on the responsibility of a full book, it hits all the important beats and provides some rich illustrations that try their best to color in the difference. My only real complaint is that sometimes the narration is inconsistently written and does some weird stuff with narrative perspective, like hearing the narrator refer to himself in the third person and tell you you’re going to learn more about something in just a page or two. But that stuff is easy to get over. It has good depictions of Smaug and Gollum, I love to look of Hobbiton and the wood elves. Supposedly there is a “redux” version of this where the author went in and did some additions/changes. I wouldn’t know about those as I read the copy from 1990 that I found in our family house basement that had a broken spine from me leaning on it as a kid and staring at the images of Bilbo spiking a spider in the head and smoke rising from Smaug’s slender red nose. A quality graphic adaptation/abridging.