Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files: Omnibus 1 - a graphic novel

Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files: Omnibus 1
by Jim Butcher, with art by Adrian Syaf, Brett Booth, Chase Conley and Kevin Mellon

I’ve been a huge fan of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files novels, urban fantasy novels featuring Chicago private investigator Harry Dresden, who is also a practicising wizard. The series began with Storm Front in 2000 and has turned into a huge success, spawning a short-lived television series (on the SciFi channel) and 15 novels (and a whole lot of short stories) to-date. Comics publisher Dynamite began a Dresden Files comic book a few years ago, and has adapted several of Butcher’s novels into the graphical format, as well as telling some all-original stories in the comic books as well. Most stories run several issues — as many as 7 or 8 — and are then later compiled into a graphic novel with all the issues of that storyline together. This particular book — Omnibus 1 — gathers the original story “Welcome to the Jungle” (previously reviewed on BookGuide) with adaptations of the first two novels, “Storm Front” and “Fool Moon”, followed by another 10-page original, “Restoration of Faith”. These graphic novels are an excellent introduction to the character and storylines of Harry Dresden, nicely capturing both his wry, sarcastic sense of humor, and the complex, sometimes violent cases he gets mixed up in. The art in these stories is by various artists, including Adrian Syaf, Brett Booth, Chase Conley and Kevin Mellon. I found Syaf’s art to be gorgeous and highly detailed, while the art by the others tended to be a bit more abstract and/or grotesque. The coloring is beautiful. Having read both “Storm Front” and “Fool Moon” when they originally came out, I felt the comic adaptation did a tremendous job, hitting all the major plot points without loosing anything in translation.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the actual Dresden Files novels by Jim Butcher, or the audiobook versions read by James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer!)] [ Publisher’s official Dresden Files Omnibus Vol. 1 web page ] | [ official Jim Butcher web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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