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Graphic Classics #12
Graphic Classics, Volume 12: Adventure Classics
Presents thirteen tales of adventure in an illustrated format by prominent artists in the fields of comics, book illustration, and fine arts.
- GenresGraphic NovelsClassics
144 pages, Paperback
First published July 11, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 5, 2024
A wonderfully illustrated collection of rollicking adventure yarns!
From the haunted excavations of an Egyptian desert tomb to an elegant but mysterious masqued ball in 18th century France, from the rain forests of Central American to the frigid windswept Canadian Arctic, from the 17th century Caribbean seas and naval warfare against the Spanish Armada to the European trenches of World War I, from the streets of New York to the 19th century battleground between the French and English armies in Spain, from the fogbound streets of upper crust London to the stifling, heat of colonial India - ADVENTURE CLASSICS has anthologized a wonderful collection of adventure stories from some of the best loved classic authors who ever put pen to paper. You'll thrill to poetry from Rudyard Kipling and Robert Service, the exploits of Brigadier Gerard from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the exhilarating, heart-stopping action of Zane Grey's manly heroes and buxom, beauteous heroines. You'll lap up the swashbuckling derring-do of Rafael Sabatini's CAPTAIN BLOOD and you'll chill to the teeth-chattering horror of Sax Rohmer and Johnston McCulley.
For dedicated readers and classic lovers looking for a lighthearted break from the written page but still hoping to retain a note of seriousness and quality, graphic novels like this Graphic Classics series provide the perfect answer - easy reading, quality artwork that provides a complement to the author's words and the readers' imaginations, an opportunity to sample authors that you might never have read before, a chance to quickly re-read classics that perhaps you read many years ago in your youth but haven't had the chance to reread as an adult.
The only criticism that I can level at this particular volume is that the artwork was exclusively in black and white. That said, I should also single out artist Nick Miller who did a hilarious job illustrating Conan Doyle's CRIME OF THE BRIGADIER. His portrayal of the dandified Brigadier Gerard's antics outwitting the French Army were simply beyond superb. Some of the facial expressions he captured in his cartoon caricatures were absolutely amazing.
Undoubtedly, you could read this entire collection in less than an hour. But my advice is to slow down! Take time to peruse and absorb each and every delicious panel of art. You'll quickly come to understand how a well-prepared and sensuously illustrated graphic novel can complement and extend an author's ideas and bring an adventure to life in a way that the original writer probably never imagined. I'm definitely going to be looking for more in this wonderful series. Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss
From the haunted excavations of an Egyptian desert tomb to an elegant but mysterious masqued ball in 18th century France, from the rain forests of Central American to the frigid windswept Canadian Arctic, from the 17th century Caribbean seas and naval warfare against the Spanish Armada to the European trenches of World War I, from the streets of New York to the 19th century battleground between the French and English armies in Spain, from the fogbound streets of upper crust London to the stifling, heat of colonial India - ADVENTURE CLASSICS has anthologized a wonderful collection of adventure stories from some of the best loved classic authors who ever put pen to paper. You'll thrill to poetry from Rudyard Kipling and Robert Service, the exploits of Brigadier Gerard from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the exhilarating, heart-stopping action of Zane Grey's manly heroes and buxom, beauteous heroines. You'll lap up the swashbuckling derring-do of Rafael Sabatini's CAPTAIN BLOOD and you'll chill to the teeth-chattering horror of Sax Rohmer and Johnston McCulley.
For dedicated readers and classic lovers looking for a lighthearted break from the written page but still hoping to retain a note of seriousness and quality, graphic novels like this Graphic Classics series provide the perfect answer - easy reading, quality artwork that provides a complement to the author's words and the readers' imaginations, an opportunity to sample authors that you might never have read before, a chance to quickly re-read classics that perhaps you read many years ago in your youth but haven't had the chance to reread as an adult.
The only criticism that I can level at this particular volume is that the artwork was exclusively in black and white. That said, I should also single out artist Nick Miller who did a hilarious job illustrating Conan Doyle's CRIME OF THE BRIGADIER. His portrayal of the dandified Brigadier Gerard's antics outwitting the French Army were simply beyond superb. Some of the facial expressions he captured in his cartoon caricatures were absolutely amazing.
Undoubtedly, you could read this entire collection in less than an hour. But my advice is to slow down! Take time to peruse and absorb each and every delicious panel of art. You'll quickly come to understand how a well-prepared and sensuously illustrated graphic novel can complement and extend an author's ideas and bring an adventure to life in a way that the original writer probably never imagined. I'm definitely going to be looking for more in this wonderful series. Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss
November 22, 2021
All in all a great collection. The artwork is very hit and miss but the stories are all worth reading even though nearly all of them are not noteworthy. There are some noteworthy authors (Dumas, Conan Doyle, Kipling, O. Henry) but those are not their famous works. A nice collection of works I otherwise never would have known about. My two favorites were A Masked Ball by Dumas and Two Men Named Collins by Damon Runyan.
October 2, 2012
Reason for Reading: I'm working on reading the complete series.
Adventure Classics didn't turn out to be one of my favourite volumes in this series but still it is an exciting read and a fantastic collection of obscure tales from classic authors of the past. The theme is a bit vague here. What exactly is an "adventure"? Easily enough to define, we have the stories of pirates, the wild west, the arctic gold rush, and tales of war but a few others are on the fence as to whether they are "adventures" or not: magic in the desert, love in the jungle, a haunted house story. Nevertheless, a unique blend of stories provides an interesting mix of styles and some stand out more than others. The piece de resistance for me was to see one of my favourite poems done in the graphic format "The Shooting of Dan McGrew". While I'd heard of most of the authors represented here I'll have to say other than "Gunga Din", another all-time favourite poem, all the other titles were new to me, which was refreshing. My favourite stories were E. Nesbit's "The Mystery of the Semi-Detached", McCulley's "Stolen Story" and Runyan's "Two Men Named Collins". Usually I find several I don't get or like but this time there is only Fitz-James O'Brien's "The Man Without a Shadow" which is so short and then drawn in a humorous style that I'm not sure I get it beyond a farce. I enjoyed all the other re-tellings, though wishing they hadn't left out some middle verses of "Gunga Din". And was visually pleased with all the art except J.B. Bonivert's illustration of "Valley of the Sorceress". I believe I've not appreciated his work before. Here, all his characters have muscular male bodies, with manly stances, including the women, who are drawn the same way with breasts and are rather disconcerting. Reading this book has done two things for me. 1) I've read a few of E.Nesbit's ghost stories; now I'd love to find and read a collection of them. 2) I'd like to re-watch {again} one of my all-time favourite movies ever "Gunga Din" with Cary Grant.
Adventure Classics didn't turn out to be one of my favourite volumes in this series but still it is an exciting read and a fantastic collection of obscure tales from classic authors of the past. The theme is a bit vague here. What exactly is an "adventure"? Easily enough to define, we have the stories of pirates, the wild west, the arctic gold rush, and tales of war but a few others are on the fence as to whether they are "adventures" or not: magic in the desert, love in the jungle, a haunted house story. Nevertheless, a unique blend of stories provides an interesting mix of styles and some stand out more than others. The piece de resistance for me was to see one of my favourite poems done in the graphic format "The Shooting of Dan McGrew". While I'd heard of most of the authors represented here I'll have to say other than "Gunga Din", another all-time favourite poem, all the other titles were new to me, which was refreshing. My favourite stories were E. Nesbit's "The Mystery of the Semi-Detached", McCulley's "Stolen Story" and Runyan's "Two Men Named Collins". Usually I find several I don't get or like but this time there is only Fitz-James O'Brien's "The Man Without a Shadow" which is so short and then drawn in a humorous style that I'm not sure I get it beyond a farce. I enjoyed all the other re-tellings, though wishing they hadn't left out some middle verses of "Gunga Din". And was visually pleased with all the art except J.B. Bonivert's illustration of "Valley of the Sorceress". I believe I've not appreciated his work before. Here, all his characters have muscular male bodies, with manly stances, including the women, who are drawn the same way with breasts and are rather disconcerting. Reading this book has done two things for me. 1) I've read a few of E.Nesbit's ghost stories; now I'd love to find and read a collection of them. 2) I'd like to re-watch {again} one of my all-time favourite movies ever "Gunga Din" with Cary Grant.
July 13, 2012
The series "Graphic Classics" is pretty amusing- they each consist of some of the stories (in word) and graphic 'comic' interpretations of other stories... some have a theme, like this one (tales of exotic adventures, such as those that inspired the Indiana Jones movies) and some focus on a single specific author.
I found this one more compelling than some of them, and was particularly intrigued by some of the tales I had read in short story form, which were now in comic-strip form... it was a bit like seeing a 1950's version of the tale in a sordid comic book. I was amused.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews