Graphic Classics: Special Edition #1(2008).
© Graphic Classics

Mania Grade: A
Title: Graphic Classics: Special Edition
Issue: 1
Authors: Various
Publisher: Graphic Classics
Price: FREE

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GRAPHIC CLASSICS #1

The good souls at Graphic Classics have kindly graced me with a very advance copy of their forthcoming Graphic Classics: Special Edition that will hit shops on Free Comic Book Day, May 3^rd. But that’s no reason not to review it now, because it’s easily one of the best deals you’ll get on that day. At 64 pages, it has three very accomplished adaptations of classic genre short stories, with a couple of shorter comedic pieces. The three centerpieces are Rod Lott and Gerry Alanguilan’s adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat; Alex Burrows and Simon Gane’s take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s John Barrington Cowles; and Antonella Caputo and Anne Timmons’s envisioning of The Dream, by Mary Shelley. The two shorter pieces are Marc Dancey’s adaptation of an excerpt from Ambrose Bierce’s Cobwebs From an Empty Skull, and Milton Knight’s take on Lord Dunsany’s A Narrow Escape. 

The first three stories offer a range of visual styles, from the Bernie-Wrightston-influenced tones of The Black Cat, to the almost editorial-cartoon style of John Barrington Cowles. The Dream portrays Shelley’s story beautifully, but with little in the way of idiosyncrasy or quirks, for lack of a better description. In the Bierce and Dunsany stories, the art takes a more comical turn – more so in the latter, which portrays a pathetic wizard’s comical attempt to obliterate the world. All of the art is presented atmospherically in black and white. Typical of Graphic Classics’ other publications, all of the stories offer similar thrills culled from science fiction and horror stories from literature of the proper sort. Most readers will already be familiar with Poe’s ghoulish story, but I can emphatically recommend both Doyle’s – a vision of feminine evil no one would dare write now – and Shelley’s – a tale of divine intervention with a decidedly happy ending. 

I can emphatically recommend this volume, especially given that it’s free. You may have to ask your comic shop to order it along with the rest of their Free Comic Book Day haul, but I assure you that it is worth your time.

Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think at comicscape@mania.com.