The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vols. I & II

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vols. I & II Alan Moore

I read both of these a while ago, so am combining together two reviews into one blog post.

Volume I

I'm still enjoying comics so I'm reading more and branching out; unforunately this isn't branching our very far. D picked this one out as she enjoyed the movie.

The comic is pretty good - quite different in visual style to The Sandman, with a more straightforward mystery story line. But, good though it was, I didn't like it as much as the other comics I've been reading. The most interesting aspect is that this is actually a re-telling of Sherlock Holmes, from the perspective of a group investigating a minor storyline. This was entirely missing from my understanding of the movie, so either I'm unusually dense, or... I can see why Alan Moore objected so much to the movie.

We have volume two of the series, so I will be going on to read that. And also other comics. Definitely The Sandman, but I'm also going to try branching out a bit more: to works written by authors I haven't already read nor the originals of fairly mainstream movies.

Volume II

This one was read straight after the first volume, which makes comparison easier: unfortunately it just wasn't as good. Volume II is a re-telling of H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds. This re-telling is much more straightforward: it's obvious within the first few pages.

This comic is also much darker than any of the other comics that I've read. V for Vendetta was probably darker in tone, but this is much darker in imagery. There is actually some moderately gruesome stuff in this one. You have been warned. Frank Miller's work (Sin City, The 300) has been been recommended to me: so I'm guessing this is pretty good preparation.

Volume III wasn't available when I went looking, so I'll be trying some other stuff next. And to be honest, I'm no longer in any great hurry to keep reading The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.