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Graphic Novel Review


Book Cover

A Game of Thrones
Volume Four (Hardback)

 

Writer: George R. R. Martin
Adapted by: Daniel Abraham
Artist: Tommy Patterson
Publisher: Harper Voyager
RRP: £14.99
ISBN: 978 0 00 813220 0
Publication Date: 07 May 2015


With Game of Thrones spreading out into every conceivable format possible, it was not a surprise that a comic book version should have been created.

A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel Volume Four is the ultimate book in the series based on the first book in the A Game of Thrones series. The book was written by Daniel Abraham, a Hugo and Nebula nominee and illustrated by Tommy Paterson.

Running to a hundred and eighty pages, with an additional fourteen pages dedicated to the creation of the book, this collection, with its fine quality paper and hardback cover is a nice object to own.

The story follows the original book's source material more closely than the television series, which is both an opportunity and a limitation. The opportunity is in showing the world of Westeros unencumbered by the constraints of a budget, whereas the limitation comes from having to radically cut down the text so that the book is able to produce roughly one page of graphic novel for one page of the original book.

Abraham has done a fine job of keeping much of the pertinent text from the book and the flow of the narrative never seems stilted or confined. The art, like all art, will be a matter of personal choice.

The characters are not based on those of the show, so Patterson is more able to show Tyrion as facially deformed. What I didn’t get was why there was a greater degree in angularity in some of the depictions. It only crops up now and again, but makes the characters look decidedly odd. There is a depiction, quite early on, where Tyrion meets his father, where the back of Tywin's head, in profile, comes to a definite point.

The fourth volume covers the story from Tyrion’s recruitment of the hill tribes of the vale, ending with Daenerys Targaryen waking her dragons. Being Game of Thrones the book does contain nudity, but is tastefully executed.

It’s a good execution of the book which, in depiction and content, stands somewhere between the original novel and the television series.

7

Charles Packer

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