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Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, a science fiction classic, has been morphed into a bold creative graphic novel that does the story real justice. It’s a standout among graphic novel adaptations. The graphic version doesn’t just repeat the story from the novel, but also provides the reader with handy dandy charts and displays of all the characters, the timelines, and even all the equipment worn into battle by Billy Pilgrim’s wartime buddy. The story intersperses comic relief ala Hogan’s Heroes POW...
I have wanted to pick up Slaughterhouse-Five for years, ever since I was given 1984 in high school instead of this book. I had always been interested in what I missed out in reading this book, and lucky for me NetGalley had the graphic novel version of this book!I thought this was a great way to present the story, even if I haven't read the original work. If I had options like this way back in my high school days then it would have made reading some of these classics way more entertaining! I'd h...
I already loved Slaughterhouse 5, this graphic novel is a great adaptation.
Rarely does a comic adaptation meet the expectations of the original novel, but this does, because Vonnegut's metafiction and hyper self-awareness is perfectly suited to the medium. Sad, funny, sobering and sparse, Kurt's 1969 anti-war classic Slaughterhouse Five is brought to life with Albert Monteys' beautiful cartoony illustrations which are polished and yet somehow derivative of Kurt's own style. Ryan North (Adventure Time) writes the script and somehow it works. A lovely way to honor the or...
I read Slaughterhouse-Five when I was in my teens or early twenties, and I mostly remember being annoyed by it, with its time slips and alien abductions. Either being older or, more likely, the extreme skill of this graphic novel adaptation has given me a new appreciation for Vonnegut's story. Darkly humorous and sadly still too timely.
How do you adapt a notoriously unadaptable novel to another medium? You choose to make it a graphic novel, so you can skillfully portray the time jumps inherent to the story, while having the complete freedom to comment on the characters, what is happening to them, has already happened and will happen in the future. So it goes.The first time I read Slaughterhouse-Five was only last year, and I loved it. This book is about as good an adaptation as I could imagine. It fully transfers the humour, t...
So it goes.Kurt Vonnegut was in Dresden, as the greatest massacre of WWII took place, and he was traumatized by it for his whole life, though you might not have guessed the ptsd from his characteristic mix of light-hearted spoofing of American culture and custom and dark satire. I have reviewed this novel elsewhere, one of my favorite books ever, so was skeptical that someone who is essentially a children’s book author of comics (SquirrelGirl, Adventure Time) could approach this masterpiece with...
I wrote this book, but I think it's really good! And I can say that because comics is a collaborative medium, and my script was only a small part of it: Albert's beautiful art and graphic storytelling sensibility took what was there in my script and turned it into something incredible. And of course Vonnegut's original prose novel is timeless and one of my favourite books of all time. The book itself is the result of all theses talents and more, and I can say without ego that it's something real...
I was skeptical about the mere possibility of there being a decent adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. It would be perilously easy to strike a wrong note in that delicate balance of absurdist humor and bleak fatalistic reality of war. So it goes, right?But this adaptation gets it pitch-perfect.I love Kurt Vonnegut’s story. It’s perfect. And clearly Ryan North loves it, too — and really gets it, as this adaptation shows.It’s bleakly funny and yet soberly serious; comedy and tragedy...
Slaughterhouse-Five is a weird book. In prepping to review this adaptation I saw several mentions of it being practically unadaptable to any other format. However, I think this graphic novel version does a pretty darn good job.Both the original and this version are weird. They are hard to follow. But they are oh so beautiful in their melancholy cynicism that is tainted with a little bit of hope. The story is a non-linear reflection on life that varies from the gut-wrenchingly real to the outland...
Well it turns out a comic book is the perfect way to adapt an unadaptable novel. The time jumps work perfectly and are easy to follow. The horrors of war come through delicately. Even an alien abduction doesn't seem too absurd for the story of a man so horrified by war he becomes unstuck in time.Received a review copy from Boom! and NetGalley. All thoughts are my own and in no way influenced by the aforementioned.
I had some difficulty picturing how someone might be able to adapt Vonnegut’s brilliant but challenging and unusually structured anti-war novel. But Ryan North, Albert Monteys and Scott Newman did a fabulous job.Vonnegut’s straightforward yet deep prose is something to behold, and it must have been incredibly hard to choose what to use for the graphic novel adaptation and what to leave out. Inevitably, not all my favorite passages made it into the book, but I also wasn’t getting the wall of text...
I’ve had a few days to compose myself and I’m ready to actually review this graphic novel. I read Slaughterhouse Five years ago and I’d be lying if I said I remember too much about it beyond there being a human zoo and a terrible war. But that seriously does seem to sum this up, but the meaning and heartbreak is so much more. Poor Billy’s life is not great and while he experienced a whole hell of a lot of shit, he also experienced some seriously amazing stuff too. The main focus for the majority...
Slaughterhouse-Five was my first Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I had just graduated high school and I obviously knew nothing. I remember reading it before bed and not being able to go to sleep because I was so damn confused! 9 years later and I'm no wiser.World War II, the bombing of Dresden, time travel, aliens and "being unstuck in time"... Slaughterhouse-Five is a really weird anti-war book and this graphic novel is a pretty good adaptation. The art fits the story, it helps to explain what's actually goi...
Reading this graphic novel reminds me just how masterful, funny, mordant, and humane Kurt Vonnegut's writing was. Ryan North does a great job adapting the novel and keeping the tone pitch perfect (poo-tee-weet) and Albert Monteys' art is both cartoonish and realistic at the same time (matching the tone of the novel perfectly). This is a novel about the cruelty of man, the absurdity of war, the unceasing cruelty of time, and about how utterly inadequate the strategy of focusing on the good times
▫️ SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death (A Graphic Novel Adaptation) Original story by Kurt Vonnegut, adaptation by Ryan North and illustrated by Albert Monteys, 2020.There's an ongoing debate if SH5 and Kurt Vonnegut as a writer really are "science fiction", and I acknowledge the issue especially in considering KV a SF author, but the time play / warp aspects, as well the presence of the Tralfamadorian aliens in the Slaughterhouse-Five narrative make a pretty c...
I wanted to like this. Slaughterhouse-Five and Kurt Vonnegut hold a dear place in my heart. Vonnegut and his personal battles with the novel were the main subjects of my thesis. This graphic novel adaptation is greatly missing that connection. There is no denying that the artwork is beautiful (though I might argue that the soldiers are illustrated to look much older, which contradicts Vonnegut’s intention of reminding the reader how young these soldiers are via “The Children’s Crusade”). To put
As good an adaptation as I could hope for. One thing about "graphic novels" is that you can read them fast. That can be good or bad. In this case, I liked that I could get the full story of the novel in two short bursts. It wasn't as moving to me as the original was, but that could be just that I'm older and have read more Vonnegut since then.Very different from anything else by Ryan North.Poo-tee-weet?
Thank you to the publisher for an advance copy via netgalley!What an interesting idea to turn this into a graphic novel. I enjoyed reading it. It reads very well, and the illustrations Capture well the environment and moment being described. Wish it was longer!
This book made my top 10 science fiction reads from 2021! Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a1w1...“This isn't the prose novel crammed into boxes with some pictures added, but rather a version of the same story that lives within comics, that does everything it can to tell the same story - and make you feel the same sense of sorrow and loss and hope and love - in this new medium.” That quote is from Ryan North, the author, and sums up this graphic novel adaptation nicely. Vonneg...