11. Graphic Classics: Special Edition

Graphic Classics: Special Editionn edited by Tom Pomplun
Graphic Classics series

Pages: 64
Ages: 13+
Finished: Jan. 21, 2010
First Published: 2008
Genre: graphic novel, short stories
Rating: 4/5

First sentence:

Tomorrow I die at the gallows, today I unburden my soul.

Acquired: This book was offered during Free Comic Book Day 2009, and already being a fan I was thrilled to pick it up. It is available for purchase on the website.

Reason for Reading: Fan of the series, trying to eventually read my way through them all.

Comments: This is a smaller comic book edition compared to the regular book quality volumes. Described on the back as "A Classics Sampler", it contains five new short stories to illustrate the type of material that can be found in the series as a whole. I enjoyed four of the five stories very much. The fifth, an adaptation of Ambrose Bierce was only one page long and I didn't get the joke. The book opens with Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat" which has been fabulously illustrated by Gerry Alanguilan. I've never really been partial to this story as the animal cruelty makes me quite uneasy and the artist has definitely caught the mood and madness resulting in a disturbing adaption that would have made Poe proud. Arthur Conan Doyle is represented with one of this non-Holmes stories, "John Barrington Cowles" which deals with the supernatural. My favourite story in the book is Mary Shelly's "The Dream", a love story with miraculous religious intervention. I hadn't ever read anything by Shelley besides Frankenstein so found this quite interesting. The artwork by Anne Timmons is gorgeously detailed. The book then ends with a farce about a wizard by Lord Dunsany which was fun but I'm not fond of Milton Knight's cartoon style illustration. If you are collecting this series, this book is one you should not miss adding to the collection.