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Dave Elliott The Weirding Willows Vol.1 A1 Presents (Hardback) - Common
After years of studying under scientists like Charles Darwin and reading the essays of Doctor Victor Frankenstein, Doctor Philippe Moreau moved to the country to continue his experiments in artificially advancing evolution.His wife left him, and took with her their daughter, Alice. All her life, all Alice has known the Weir across from the Wild Woods. Aged 9, Alice wandered into the Wild Woods and made her first startling discovery. A portal to another world. A world called Wonderland.Now aged 18, Alice has found three more portals in the Woods, with rumors amongst the intelligent animals that inhabit the Weir of many more. Along with a team comprised of Badger, Mole, Ratty, Toad, Frankenstein's Monster, Mowgli, Benjamin Bunny, Peter Rabbit and the White Rabbit, Alice now guards these gateways from those who would exploit them - or those who would invade our world through them!
Unknown Binding
First published September 10, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 18, 2020
Another find in the Forbidden Planet sale but this time not a gem. The concept is right up there with the best; merging the characters from classic literature from the late 18th and early 19th century, but the final product is a difficult read. We have Alice in Wonderland, Wind in the Willows, Frankenstein, The Jungle Book, and The Wizard of Oz, to name but a few, and it's just all too much at once.
I found the introduction of so many characters so quickly rather difficult to follow and the story bounced around so many ways that I couldn't tell where it was trying to take me. I would have liked to give further volumes a go to see if things become clearer, but it seems they were never produced. As such I can really only give this 2 stars.
I found the introduction of so many characters so quickly rather difficult to follow and the story bounced around so many ways that I couldn't tell where it was trying to take me. I would have liked to give further volumes a go to see if things become clearer, but it seems they were never produced. As such I can really only give this 2 stars.
October 30, 2019
I really wanted to like this book more, but, although the concept was amazing, the execution was horrid.
January 8, 2020
I wish I could give this a higher rating, I really do. I absolutely LOVE the concept of this book, I think it's absolutely genius, but unfortunately the execution was just terrible.
The idea is that Alice (from Alice in Wonderland) is 18 now, and her home is surrounded by all these portals to other worlds. The book brings together a bunch of characters from stories that were popular around 1900, so we have The Island of Dr Moreau, The Jungle Book, The Wind in The Willows, Frankenstein etc. The idea is clever, and magical, and something I would have really loved to explore. Unfortunately we're not given a chance to do so.
The biggest issue for me is the writing. It honestly reads like something that was put together in a rush and then never proofread. There are countless typos, and one character was spelled differently the first 3 times we saw her. The panels don't always flow well into each other, and the plot is choppy at best. None of the dialogue sounds like anything that anyone real (or fictional) would actually say, and it just distances you from the story.
The artwork is just beautiful, especially in Wonderland, which makes this graphic novel all the more disappointing because honestly it had the potential to easily be 4 stars, if not 5. I kept on reading all the way to the end even though I probably would have given up on most books of this low quality because I just wanted so badly for it to get better, and it never did.
It has really cool features, like a relatively detailed map at the beginning so we can see where all the portals to other worlds are, and a 'field guide' at the end of each chapter that tells you more about the characters. Those field guides, and the foreword/ afterword were honestly my favourite parts of the graphic novel because they showed what this story could and should have been. The idea behind the story and characters was so flawless, and it baffles me that they were unable to convert that into a good read. If you were to ask me what happened in the story I'd be like "Uhhhh, I'm not really sure," because there was just no logical flow, and often I found myself double checking I hadn't accidentally skipped a page because the transition between panels often made no sense whatsoever.
Sadly I won't be reading the rest of the series because despite the promising concept and beautiful art, the writing is just so painfully bad that it's not worth the time.
The idea is that Alice (from Alice in Wonderland) is 18 now, and her home is surrounded by all these portals to other worlds. The book brings together a bunch of characters from stories that were popular around 1900, so we have The Island of Dr Moreau, The Jungle Book, The Wind in The Willows, Frankenstein etc. The idea is clever, and magical, and something I would have really loved to explore. Unfortunately we're not given a chance to do so.
The biggest issue for me is the writing. It honestly reads like something that was put together in a rush and then never proofread. There are countless typos, and one character was spelled differently the first 3 times we saw her. The panels don't always flow well into each other, and the plot is choppy at best. None of the dialogue sounds like anything that anyone real (or fictional) would actually say, and it just distances you from the story.
The artwork is just beautiful, especially in Wonderland, which makes this graphic novel all the more disappointing because honestly it had the potential to easily be 4 stars, if not 5. I kept on reading all the way to the end even though I probably would have given up on most books of this low quality because I just wanted so badly for it to get better, and it never did.
It has really cool features, like a relatively detailed map at the beginning so we can see where all the portals to other worlds are, and a 'field guide' at the end of each chapter that tells you more about the characters. Those field guides, and the foreword/ afterword were honestly my favourite parts of the graphic novel because they showed what this story could and should have been. The idea behind the story and characters was so flawless, and it baffles me that they were unable to convert that into a good read. If you were to ask me what happened in the story I'd be like "Uhhhh, I'm not really sure," because there was just no logical flow, and often I found myself double checking I hadn't accidentally skipped a page because the transition between panels often made no sense whatsoever.
Sadly I won't be reading the rest of the series because despite the promising concept and beautiful art, the writing is just so painfully bad that it's not worth the time.
December 21, 2024
This volume comes from a great idea; there is obvious enthusiasm and passion behind it, which carried me through to the end, and there are glimpses of what it could have been in some really nice and occasionally punchy moments, but I'm afraid the whole does not deliver on the vision.
The story, on the whole, is pretty bland, as is the dialogue most of the time. Add to that the outright errors in grammar, multiply by the fact that one character's name appears in *three* different spellings, and what remains is a book that feels thrown together without proper editorial oversight.
In my opinion, the basic issue is that all the referenced works - Wind in the Willows, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Frankenstein, and of course the Alice stories of Lewis Carroll, to name but a few - these are timeless classics, each in their own way visionary, defining many forms and genres of fiction as we know them today: this book was never going to be able to live up to those sources, and it shows. It's a pity; I really wanted to like it, but this remains a classic example of how you need more than a great idea to tell a compelling story.
The story, on the whole, is pretty bland, as is the dialogue most of the time. Add to that the outright errors in grammar, multiply by the fact that one character's name appears in *three* different spellings, and what remains is a book that feels thrown together without proper editorial oversight.
In my opinion, the basic issue is that all the referenced works - Wind in the Willows, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Frankenstein, and of course the Alice stories of Lewis Carroll, to name but a few - these are timeless classics, each in their own way visionary, defining many forms and genres of fiction as we know them today: this book was never going to be able to live up to those sources, and it shows. It's a pity; I really wanted to like it, but this remains a classic example of how you need more than a great idea to tell a compelling story.
February 3, 2023
This is a riff on various characters that are the public domain. To be fair to Dave, we knew that going in. I really wanted to love this but merely liked it, Dave's been around the industry for years and has produced some stunning stuff, he's more than ably assisted here by Barnaby Bagenda and Sami Basri. But...I get the feeling that there was more story here than actually appeared in the book. I wish it had. There were a few jumps that made me go "huh?" and I felt that Dave wanted to tell a langourous story that built to a glorious climax but something went awry. The concept is brilliant and you can tell the planning that's going on behind the scenes. However, this project could have done with an external editor as there were too many ideas and not enough space to get it across. Having said that, I would recommend it highly as an extremely enjoyable read.
February 2, 2025
There is a lot to like here conceptually, as it meshes the world of fantasy into a conglomeration similar in fashion to the work Allan Moore did with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but in place of Quatermain and Harker, we get Alice and Frankenstein’s monster. This works well enough, and it is paced well as a read, but while the world building is inspiring and the creators have blended obscure and modern heroes alike into the narrative, there still seems to be gaps that could be addressed. Still, a fun mashup of characters and ideas.
August 14, 2023
"The Weirding Willows: What The Wild Things Are" combines a number of Victorian and Edwardian adventure tales to create a massive interconnected shared fantasy world. Although, this idea is fairly brilliant and the main character Alice, from the Lewis Carroll books, really pops the overall result is a confusing hodgepodge of a story that is hard to follow and not interesting or coherent enough to want to do so.
Three and and a half stars rounded to three.
Three and and a half stars rounded to three.
May 11, 2024
Det är lustigt hur teamet bakom denna serie lyckats förvalta galenskapen i Alice i underlandet genom sin berättarteknik. Det går snabbt i svängarna mellan alla referenser vilket i början är störigt men finner mig nöjt fnissa hela tiden. Det finns en manisk känsla igenom hela historien. Läser gärna en uppföljare men kan också vara nöjd med att den slutar som den börjar. Som att vi fått se in i en reva i den fria fantasins värld.
July 10, 2023
I knew when Alice (of Wonderland) was walking around in front of her father (Dr. Moreau) without pants this was going to flop for me. It's a mashup of assorted Victoriana with Moreau designing winged monkeys for the Wicked Witch of the West, Dr. Dolittle's evil son meeting his kid Mowgli and Frankenstein battling Peter Rabbit. Mashups like this can be fun; this one isn't at all.
May 16, 2020
An interesting,unexpected pleasure. A story that probably shouldn't work,mixing characters from an eclectic range of literary sources such as Frankenstein,Wind in the Willows,Jungle Book,Alice in Wonderland etc. Worth a look
July 25, 2018
fun times
July 1, 2014
Reprints A1: The Weirding Willows #1-7 (June 2013-May 2014). Welcome to Willow Weir! The forest hides a secret that only Alice Moreau is privy to…the land of Willow Weir has access to different worlds. While her father Dr. Moreau experiments on animals for a mysterious benefactor named Margareete Marche and her associate Dr. Jekyll, Moreau and his assistant Montgomery Doolittle find a problem with a wild boy named Mowgli who is determined to end Moreau’s inhumane experiments. Dr. Moreau makes a breakthrough when he learns Willow Weir is filled with talking animal, and it could mean problems for Alice and the inhabitants of Willow Weir.
Written by Dave Elliot and with illustrations by Barnaby Bagenda and Sami Basri, A1 Presents—The Weirding Willows 1: What the Wild Things Are presents the first seven issues the comic produced by Titan and Atomeka.
I’m a big literature buff, and I am a real fan of fairytales and folklore. These tales used to encompass things like the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson along with old stories passed down through the ages. Now, through the years (and loss of copyright protection), characters from “new” novels are working their way into these stories of old. Books like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Fables have played around with the idea of the new age of heroes and characters from books like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland…The Weirding Willows is another.
I was excited to read The Weirding Willows with my background and since I did enjoy Fables and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Unfortunately, the series feels a little less refined and developed than the other two series. I had a hard time getting into the comic and felt there was too much fantasy happening outside the Weir with Alice’s father being Dr. Moreau, his assistant Doolittle, and his friend Henry Jekyll (and Mr. McGregor as a neighbor). I could have handled one or two of these characters (preferably just Alice who is an incredibly tough character to write in general), but I wish only the Willow Weir was magical.
The book however did grow on me a bit since I’m a sucker for this style of mash-up genre, but I found myself wanting to mix and match what I liked about the series by eliminating some of things I didn’t like. It would be a pretty solid book if that was possible and the book is very, very close to working.
I am also torn on the art. I dislike the first cover which I feel was not representative of the book’s content and looked like something from the Grimm Fairy Tales comic. I much preferred the interior art which was more unique and interesting. I liked both Barnaby Bagenda and Sami Basri art, but felt sometimes it was too raw or disliked the coloring.
The Weirding Willows almost works, but with seven issues in, it needs to find a bit more direction. Fortunately, the comic is independent and has the luxury of time to explore, but I feel that too much and too many characters are being brought to get a good read on any of them. With the great reads of Fables and its spin-off series and the occasional League of Extraordinary Gentlemen being published, The Weirding Willows might have a challenge to succeed.
Written by Dave Elliot and with illustrations by Barnaby Bagenda and Sami Basri, A1 Presents—The Weirding Willows 1: What the Wild Things Are presents the first seven issues the comic produced by Titan and Atomeka.
I’m a big literature buff, and I am a real fan of fairytales and folklore. These tales used to encompass things like the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson along with old stories passed down through the ages. Now, through the years (and loss of copyright protection), characters from “new” novels are working their way into these stories of old. Books like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Fables have played around with the idea of the new age of heroes and characters from books like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland…The Weirding Willows is another.
I was excited to read The Weirding Willows with my background and since I did enjoy Fables and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Unfortunately, the series feels a little less refined and developed than the other two series. I had a hard time getting into the comic and felt there was too much fantasy happening outside the Weir with Alice’s father being Dr. Moreau, his assistant Doolittle, and his friend Henry Jekyll (and Mr. McGregor as a neighbor). I could have handled one or two of these characters (preferably just Alice who is an incredibly tough character to write in general), but I wish only the Willow Weir was magical.
The book however did grow on me a bit since I’m a sucker for this style of mash-up genre, but I found myself wanting to mix and match what I liked about the series by eliminating some of things I didn’t like. It would be a pretty solid book if that was possible and the book is very, very close to working.
I am also torn on the art. I dislike the first cover which I feel was not representative of the book’s content and looked like something from the Grimm Fairy Tales comic. I much preferred the interior art which was more unique and interesting. I liked both Barnaby Bagenda and Sami Basri art, but felt sometimes it was too raw or disliked the coloring.
The Weirding Willows almost works, but with seven issues in, it needs to find a bit more direction. Fortunately, the comic is independent and has the luxury of time to explore, but I feel that too much and too many characters are being brought to get a good read on any of them. With the great reads of Fables and its spin-off series and the occasional League of Extraordinary Gentlemen being published, The Weirding Willows might have a challenge to succeed.
November 1, 2016
First like 70% of my comic reads I read this as single issues, in either print or digital. In this case I read them in digital.
Interesting concept that has much in common with Fables by Bill Willingham (DC/Vertigo). This first volume just...ends. No conclusions and many unfinished story lines. I would have liked more world building.
Art duties are mostly fulfilled by Barnaby Bagenda (The Omega Men: The End is Here), with Sami Basri (Voodoo, Vol. 1: What Lies Beneath), and Dave Elliott filling in at the end.
I wouldn't mind seeing a second volume...but I'm not holding my breath.
Interesting concept that has much in common with Fables by Bill Willingham (DC/Vertigo). This first volume just...ends. No conclusions and many unfinished story lines. I would have liked more world building.
Art duties are mostly fulfilled by Barnaby Bagenda (The Omega Men: The End is Here), with Sami Basri (Voodoo, Vol. 1: What Lies Beneath), and Dave Elliott filling in at the end.
I wouldn't mind seeing a second volume...but I'm not holding my breath.
May 30, 2014
Weirding Willows is a great blend of classic genre characters. In the vein of Fables or the work of Zenescope, WW takes characters from the SFF stories in the public domain and makes an intriguing new tale. From Wind in the Willows and Oz, to the work of HG Wells and Rudyard Kipling, this series combines great characters in a new world. Without getting too dark or taking itself, there is a lot of entertainment here. Though I feel like a true introduction to the world and the individual characters is missing. You don't feel too lost being thrown into this patchwork world.
March 30, 2015
Awesome concept. Looking forward to more.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews