James Silvani

My 2 daughters are HUGE fans of Hotel Transylvania. I’ve lost track of how many times we’ve watched the movies and tv show and they are very much looking forward to the 3rd movie coming out next year (2018).

When this came up I of course had to let them check it out. The character bios at the beginning are bright, colorful and a great way to refresh your memory or introduce you to the players if somehow you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know anything about the story.

The graphic novel follows the previously released visual storylines so my girls really got into it and had a fun time taking turns reading the pages, looking at the pictures and talking about the story.

The author did a good job capturing the likeness and personality of the characters from the movie and tv show. Unfortunately the only thing that didn’t quite translate is the lack of body movement and voices because how the characters move and sound were a huge part of what made them funny but you have to expect you’re going to lose that when you go from an animated tale to still life.

Thankfully the artwork mimics the originals so well that if you use a bit of imagination you can still feel that same sense of fun and campy humor as yet again the monsters have to prove they aren’t that monstrous.

When it comes to stuff like this I let my kids take over the reviewing and they give it 5 Bats!… (mehr)

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Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

I received a free copy from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, thank you!

I've got a thing for Dinosaurs. So I couldn't resist this book completely about Dinosaurs, even though it's a drawing book for children. And I didn't expect I would like it as much as I did, because it is more than just drawings of Dino's.

First of all, instead of giving you just one position to make your drawing (something that always disappointed me in other books that taught you how to draw), it offers a lot of different angles, and focusses on details. It also tells you what kind of changes you would have to make to change the dinosaur into other dinosaurs from the same family. This gives you a large number of dinosaurs to draw (also flying/swimming ones).

What I also really liked is that it - in my humble opinion - was trying to learn children some very important lessons from Biology; namely, that nature has certain features that are repeated over and over, even in animals that don't look alike at all. For example, it shows the skeleton of both Humans and a Dinosaur to explain that they are actually the same. During the book, it will focus on different parts that are always there, but not always visible (like digits, knees, hipbones etc).

Besides, it motivates to look to living animals for inspiration, like elephants, rhino's and more.

And finally, the book is witty. That's just another great plus. Some drawings are for a smoothie-drinking T-rex and why not a variation on the Swan Lake performed by a Brachiosaurus and an Allosaurus? It motivates to use the imagination and be creative. I really liked this book...… (mehr)

The story line in this particular trade gives so many nods to classic comic books that it's almost mind boggling. Not only does it nod to comics, but movies, cartoons, anime, and the Darkwing Duck cartoon of old. That last phrase might seem like a no-brainer since these comics are basically a continuation of the cartoon but so many of todays cross-media adaptations ignore the mythos and history of their franchise (X-Men movies come to mind.) that it is so refreshing to see that this comic does it right. This comic isn't just a tie-in cash grab on a dead idea resurrected for profit, no. The artists and writers behind this book actually care.

It's not only enjoyable for fans of the cartoon, it works as homage and parody as well if you chose to see it that way.

But above all else it is actually constructed as a good super-hero story in and of itself, with one instance of a particularly heart-wrenching scene in the middle.

The one pit-fall is that this book has a sort of muddled and confused ending which was unfortunate because the build up was so fantastic, which is why I gave it 4 stars.

Over-all, I recommend this comic to anyone who loved the cartoon, or loves comics or parodies in general. You'll be pleasantly surprised.… (mehr)