158. The Griff by Christopher Moore

The Griff by Christopher Moore & Ian Corson. Illustrated by Jennyson Rosero (US) - (Canada)

Pages: 160
Ages: 18+
Finished: Jun. 1, 2012
First Published: Jul. 19, 2011
Publisher: William Morrow
Genre: graphic novel, science fiction
Rating: 2/5


First sentence: "That's got it, Skipper."

Publisher's Summary:
The mayhem begins when an ancient alien beacon is unwittingly activated, summoning behemoth spaceships from the far reaches of the galaxy. Hovering in Earth’s atmosphere, they release a biblical stream of pods that transform into minivan-size, people-eating, flying lizardy things that look like mythological griffins. Destroying communications, emergency, and military infrastructure, they systematically kill everyone on the planet. Well, almost everyone.

A pesky trio of New Yorkers isn’t about to roll out the red carpet—or roll over and die—for these unwelcome intergalactic marauders. Unlikely heroes Mo, a snarky, Gothy game-goddess; Steve, a skateboard-punk schwag whore; and Curt, the obligatory buff commando expert in weaponry (and a genius with cosmetics), are going to take it to the aliens—and Florida is where the fight is. Armed with M-16s, a BFG (big f**king gun), and a surplus of guts, they’ll battle their way from the Big Apple to Orlando, where a downed spacecraft is the most awesome new attraction.

And in the Sunshine State another pair of courageous (and pretty damn lucky) humans who have outwitted the toothy überlizards await: Liz, a babelicious killer whale trainer at Ocean World, and Oscar, a chain-smoking middle-aged professional squirrel (seriously—he’s paid to wear that squirrel costume).

Once united, the intrepid warriors will attempt to infiltrate the alien spacecraft, defeat the spacer invaders, and save (what’s left) of the world—and, if Steve plays his cards right, begin the fun of repopulating Earth all over again.

Acquired: Purchased a new copy from an online retailer

Reason for Reading: I read every new book by the author and was quite excited about his first foray into the graphic novel.

The publisher's description of this book pretty much tells the whole story and makes it sound a lot more fun than it really is.  Moore is well-known for his eccentric characters and I just didn't have any fun with those in this graphic novel.  I found the story quite predictable, the usual run-of-the-mill, alien invasion story.  There weren't any surprises and it just fell really flat for me.  Moore is a writer and he just didn't get to use his craft with this medium.  Yeah, there are a few moments when his witty, wry sense of humour show up in a text bubble here and there but otherwise the story was hard to keep track of since there wasn't much of it and it jumped back and forth between characters that just didn't make the cut for me.  A big disappointment.  Moore had better stick to his natural medium, the novel, and perhaps let his already successfully published novels be adapted into graphic novels instead.