I'm enjoying the graphic novel adaptations of one of my favorite book series-they certainly have their work cut out for them. The artwork is striking and appealing-my favorite of this collection was the depiction of the Eyrie and Catelyn's long climb by moonlight.

It's a simple enough idea, but I thought it was clever of them to color-code the narration points of view, a neat adaptation of the POV chapters in the original novels.

In both volumes 1 and 2, the creators have closed with a behind the scenes look at adapting something as huge and complicated as the Song of Ice and Fire series into a graphic novel. It's fun to read about the process and get visuals of the different stages of creation.

I'm very impressed with both the art and the storytelling-I'm glad they're not even through the first book-all the more for me to devour.

( )

I won't read another or any other in this series. The cruelty of the last pages finally tipped over into too-much. The GRAPHICS, however, merit all the stars. These imaginary places are so vivid! The towers, the walls, the wolves, glittering: but I cannot stomach the meanness. That's it. ( )

I guess my Volume One comment about the artist needing to work on facial expressions was right on, since Tommy Patterson acknowledges the fact himself in the bonus content of this issue.

However, Volume Two is light on emotional dialogues and heavy on battles and skirmishes, real and pretend. We get a look at the Hand's tourney, Catelyn's party trying to survive the mountain tribe onslaught, Ned's guard getting assaulted by the Lannisters and Jon's training in the Night's Watch. Patterson is pretty good with these action shots, though I still maintain he is at his most excellent when doing panoramic or crane shots that include architectural detail. Once the action shots and the panoramic view come together in a single panel, the results can be pretty amazing (see, for example, the tourney introduction full page panel).

The bonus content of Volume Two is great. It contains a detailed look into the creation process, from Abraham's first draft script, to editor's corrections, to Patterson's penciling, Dillon's lettering and finally Nunes' coloring. Quite an involved process, to be sure. ( )

[b: A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel|12962439|A Game of Thrones The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1|Daniel Abraham|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1369052110s/12962439.jpg|18120108] reading continues and... continues to not greatly impress me. While it's nice to see an alternative adaptation to the television show, the artwork of these graphic novels really doesn't appeal to me. The style is too close to the typical anime/manga style to feel truly medieval or otherworldly and some of the designs are so egregious as to be downright disturbing. In particular, the direwolves look less like wolves than they do like blobs of color with muppet muzzles. It's... not great.

That having been said, the books are somewhat saved by the accuracy of the adaptation from book to comic. The plot is closer to that of the books than the show, and much of the dialogue is lifted straight from the book itself. The pacing is decent, and in particular the attention to detail when it comes to rendering the settings is quite good. The Vale and Riverrun, for instance, are both rather great. The Iron Throne itself is the insanely massive, nearly comical, thing that it was in the books and other artistic renditions. All of this is nicely in its favor.

Nothing, however, could really save me from the character designs. The characters don't look so much related as they do traced from the same basic design. Renly, Theon, and Jon might as well be the same person - as would Gendry, were it not for his haircut. Sansa and Catelyn are essentially clones, which would work a bit well were they heights not also quite similar. Lancel and Joffrey, likewise, are indistinguishable - with the occasional Viserys thrown into that mixture as well.

I wanted to enjoy these, and on some level I did, just not quite the way I would have liked to have enjoyed them. ( )

I think I took so long reading this because it felt like I was going backward in the story. I read this in the novel a looong time ago and watched it on the show ... why did I feel like I needed to relive it? Who the hell knows why I do anything, honestly. But I will tell you one thing: this book stunk. For real. Like mildew. Which was another reason I didn't want to read it, I suppose.
The content was old, and the book literally smelled old. Not a good combo. ( )