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I have NOT seen the movie version of "League of Extraordinary Gentlement," although I admit that the movie brought the graphic novel to my attention. So I can't do any kind of comparison between the novel and the movie. I'm going into this strictly in terms of comparisons to other graphic novels I've read.
First off, I absolutely LOVE how the novel mixes and plays with the literary works and characters of that time period. Basically, the League is a group of people formed to work for the government, all of the people in the group "special" in some way, although why they are special isn't always clear. In this case, we have the Invisible Man (who isn't, perhaps, the most kind and gentle person), Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, Captain Nemo from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," Alan Quartermain (the stereotypical English explorer adventurer), and Miss Murray (an enigmatic figure who I still don't recognize from any literary work or historical story of the time).
Alan Moore, the writer of the novel, has certainly taken these characters and twisted them in such a way as to make them even more interesting. One of the best examples of this is Mr. Hyde, the hideous "beast" form of Dr. Jekyll. Initially, he's seems to be the stereotypical monster that you expect . . . except as the novel continues you begin to realize that he is brutish and deadly, yes, but also canny and much more controlled than you'd think. He hides the fact that he can actually see the Invisible Man in this form. And suddenly, Mr. Hyde is a much more interesting character.
Similar things are done with the other characters as well, and considering that this novel contains only six issues, there's a TON going on. Not only do we get the formation of the group in the first 2 chapters, but we get all of these subtle plays on character as it progresses. Doing all of this with 5 characters all at once is impressive.
The plot of the novel is somewhat simplistic and straightforward, the main thrust being the formation of the group, their first job of finding and retrieving some stolen "cavorite," an element that has levitation properties, and then the twist on this entire setup and the final confrontation in the last 2 chapters. What keeps you interested with such a simple plot is the interplay between the characters, none of them very nice and with obvious flaws.
And then there's the artwork. I mentioned while reviewing "Sandman, Volume 1" that there was a ton of detail and I didn't like it much. There was a ton of detail in "League of Extraordinary Gentlement" as well . . . and I loved it! The difference between the two was that the detail in "Sandman" was garish and vivid and in the end distracting from the main characters and the plot. But HERE the detail did not distract. In fact, it amplified the quasi-steampunkish nature of the world these characters lived in and accentuated the characters themselves. In effect, the art here was PART OF THE WORLDBUILDING, and if it had been removed or simplified the novel would not have been as interesting nor held as much depth. I actually felt like these characters were LIVING in this world, because of that detail. And it was an interesting world to live in, different from our own, but also incredibly similar.
There were a few extras at the end of the novel as well, a cover art gallery and such. The biggest extra is a short serial story that I assume appeared in pieces, one part in each issue as it was released. I'm a published author myself, so take that into account in this review: I didn't like the serial short. I think Alan Moore was trying to emulate a style for the time period this was set in, but I still felt while reading it that it was unnecessarily wordy. The story itself was interesting . . . and draws again on another literary work of the time . . . but I found it hard to read. I've read some things in the style of this time period and this felt . . . overworked.
But that was an extra, not an essential part of the graphic novel itself, and I have to say that I really enjoyed the novel. I liked the artwork, the story, the characters, and above all the world and the mixture of the literary figures. I'm definitely picking up and reading Volume 2.
First off, I absolutely LOVE how the novel mixes and plays with the literary works and characters of that time period. Basically, the League is a group of people formed to work for the government, all of the people in the group "special" in some way, although why they are special isn't always clear. In this case, we have the Invisible Man (who isn't, perhaps, the most kind and gentle person), Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, Captain Nemo from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," Alan Quartermain (the stereotypical English explorer adventurer), and Miss Murray (an enigmatic figure who I still don't recognize from any literary work or historical story of the time).
Alan Moore, the writer of the novel, has certainly taken these characters and twisted them in such a way as to make them even more interesting. One of the best examples of this is Mr. Hyde, the hideous "beast" form of Dr. Jekyll. Initially, he's seems to be the stereotypical monster that you expect . . . except as the novel continues you begin to realize that he is brutish and deadly, yes, but also canny and much more controlled than you'd think. He hides the fact that he can actually see the Invisible Man in this form. And suddenly, Mr. Hyde is a much more interesting character.
Similar things are done with the other characters as well, and considering that this novel contains only six issues, there's a TON going on. Not only do we get the formation of the group in the first 2 chapters, but we get all of these subtle plays on character as it progresses. Doing all of this with 5 characters all at once is impressive.
The plot of the novel is somewhat simplistic and straightforward, the main thrust being the formation of the group, their first job of finding and retrieving some stolen "cavorite," an element that has levitation properties, and then the twist on this entire setup and the final confrontation in the last 2 chapters. What keeps you interested with such a simple plot is the interplay between the characters, none of them very nice and with obvious flaws.
And then there's the artwork. I mentioned while reviewing "Sandman, Volume 1" that there was a ton of detail and I didn't like it much. There was a ton of detail in "League of Extraordinary Gentlement" as well . . . and I loved it! The difference between the two was that the detail in "Sandman" was garish and vivid and in the end distracting from the main characters and the plot. But HERE the detail did not distract. In fact, it amplified the quasi-steampunkish nature of the world these characters lived in and accentuated the characters themselves. In effect, the art here was PART OF THE WORLDBUILDING, and if it had been removed or simplified the novel would not have been as interesting nor held as much depth. I actually felt like these characters were LIVING in this world, because of that detail. And it was an interesting world to live in, different from our own, but also incredibly similar.
There were a few extras at the end of the novel as well, a cover art gallery and such. The biggest extra is a short serial story that I assume appeared in pieces, one part in each issue as it was released. I'm a published author myself, so take that into account in this review: I didn't like the serial short. I think Alan Moore was trying to emulate a style for the time period this was set in, but I still felt while reading it that it was unnecessarily wordy. The story itself was interesting . . . and draws again on another literary work of the time . . . but I found it hard to read. I've read some things in the style of this time period and this felt . . . overworked.
But that was an extra, not an essential part of the graphic novel itself, and I have to say that I really enjoyed the novel. I liked the artwork, the story, the characters, and above all the world and the mixture of the literary figures. I'm definitely picking up and reading Volume 2.
