Comic Review: Green River Killer and Bram Stoker's Dracula

These were my Christmas presents. They were both ones that I had been wanting for a while, and had requested. I really thought I might get Island of Memory, too, but it's almost my birthday.

Green River Killer: A True Detective Story (Dark Horse Books, 2011)

Written by Jeff Jensen, with art by Jonathan Case and lettering by Nate Piekos of Blambot.

It's in black and white, so there was no colorist. I have to say, that was pretty effective. There is a stark reality to the novel, which color would probably have diluted.

I am a big fan of Ann Rule, and read her Green River, Running Red a few years ago. Also, I had some familiarity with the case just as someone who has lived in the Pacific Northwest all my life, and remembers when it was an open case.

The book is strong at stirring up those memories. Pictures and words bring up specific things about the case, but also there are little touches, like fragments of songs coming from the radio or television shows that evoke the time and place.

The writer is the son of Tom Jensen, the detective who stayed on the Green River task force from 1984 through the case being closed, including a long stretch where he was the only member of the task force. Instead of giving you every detail of the case, it becomes very much a personal story about commitment, and love, and the toll that a job in law enforcement can take. It is ultimately touching and inspiring, and definitely recommended.

Bram Stoker's Dracula: The Graphic Novel (Puffin Graphics, 2006)

Adapted by Gary Reed, Illustrated by Becky Cloonan

This one was by turns disappointing and then frustrating. Some of that may have been my fault. I love Dracula. It's one of my favorite examples of epistolary fiction, it hints of a much larger world than you are shown, and I think it is awesome. That made my expectations pretty high.

Having read the source material multiple times, I may have been too unforgiving of departures, but I thought that when the dialogue was changed, it was to the detriment of the dialogue, and some of the scenes that were included versus some that were not made no sense to me.

I have given Becky Cloonan several good reviews, so I hate not loving something of hers. The art is not bad, and there are some places where it really soars. Those are usually in some of the less literal depictions, where there is more room for imagination. I did not like the depictions of Lucy's three suitors. I suppose some of the peculiarities are to make them more distinct from each other, but I didn't really feel the characters.

There are some things that are interesting about that. The most vivid character was Renfield. Reed has written something else about him, and I am interested in reading that. If I like Cloonan's art better now than in 2006, well, I've never traced a comic artist's evolution over time, and that is an interesting idea - looking at someone's work in chronological order. So, I do not recommend this book, but I am not holding that against the producers.

There was one other bit of frustration that I need to mention. I wanted to add my review on Goodreads, and I did find a version of Dracula with Reed and Cloonan listed, but there wasn't a lot of detail. I entered my information, but then noticed the other reviews were all for the novel, not the graphic novel, so I had just given one of my favorite books two stars. I then saw that I had never reviewed Dracula itself on Goodreads, so I found my edition and entered that, and it changed the one I had done for the graphic novel. It's rare for me to run into issues like this with Goodreads, but this time, it did. I now have notes on both in the same review.

http://jonathancase.net/

http://www.beckycloonan.net/