The Best of Ray Bradbury: The Graphic Novel

I’ve been a fan of Bradbury’s since I was twelve, so it was the author, not the cover art that drew me to this graphic novel. The cover art is dark, with an illustration that can only be deciphered after you stare and stare at it a while (it’s a bald man’s back and left arm with numerous tattoos depicting the stories within.) Had I not been familiar with Bradbury as an author, I would have skipped right over this novel, which would have been a shame as the stories are brilliant.

Being a collection of short stories, different artists illustrate different stories. This lends a wonderful excitement to the novel; the reader never gets bored looking at the same stylized images. Each artistic style matches well with the story told and show more enhances it telling. Rather than read the book front-to-back, or selecting a story based on title (which is what I usually do with short-stories), I found myself flipping through and selecting to read based solely on the illustrations I saw.

If young people today are not familiar with Ray Bradbury’s work, or feel he’s “out of date”, they need to be introduced to this collection. Bradbury, in my opinion, is still the science-fiction master, and the addition of these glorious graphic illustrations only heightens one’s enjoyment. show less

I was a bit skeptical about these classics being turned visual, but the artwork from different artists is all wonderful, and each artist adds a particular flavor to each story. I'm glad I have this one in print.