Written by: Peter S. Beagle, Peter Gillis (text adaptation), Renae De Liz and Ray Dillon (illustrators)
Released: January 25, 2011 by Idea & Design Works Inc.
Summary: Whimsical. Lyrical. Poignant. Adapted for the first time from the acclaimed and beloved novel by Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn is a tale for any age about the wonders of magic, the power of love, and the tragedy of loss. The unicorn, alone in her enchanted wood, discovers that she may be the last of her kind. Reluctant at first, she sets out on a journey to find her fellow unicorns, even if it means facing the terrifying anger of the Red Bull and malignant evil of the king who wields his power.
First of all, when I requested this on netGalley it failed to come to my attention that it’s a graphic novel. Imagine my surprise when, while on my second plane to BEA, I chose this e-book and was met by amazing black and while images (my e-reader isn’t a colour one).
I absolutely loved the novel when I read it and I was really interested to see how it would translate to a graphic novel.
It’s gorgeous.
As a failed visual art minor while in university (I switched my minor to writing after first year) I know about colour and composition and what have you. With the large use of blues throughout the entire novel, there’s this amazing juxtaposition of orange hues which really just makes the entire page pop. Honestly, there were some frames that really took my breath away they were so beautifully done.
I wasn’t, however, a real fan of how the people were drawn. Maybe I’m just so attached to the old animated movie version of this novel, but the change in the appearance for all human characters just had me longing a little for what I knew. The unicorn, however, was done brilliantly.
I also wished that I had a hard-copy of this. I wasn’t able to really read the dialogue since the print was too small on both my reader and my computer with no way of zooming in. Luckily that wasn’t a problem since I know and love the story anyway. It was easy enough to follow along.
This is a great graphic novel and it opens up this amazing story to a whole new generation in this fantastic new medium. I highly recommend it to anyone who loved the original and for anyone who has never read the story before. I’m giving it a 9/10.
Many thanks to Idea & Design and netGalley for allowing me to have an eARC of this book.
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