Joe Hill: The Graphic Novel Collection

RATING:
Joe Hill: The Graphic Novel Collection
Joe Hill The Graphic Novel Collection review
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The creativity and variety of Joe Hill’s short stories has resulted in half a dozen adaptations as graphic novels, all published by IDW, yet not all present in this collection. Still, a 484 page hardback is surely content enough.

One story stands head and shoulders above the remainder. The Cape concerns Eric, a serial moper whose life takes an immensely fulfilling turn when he acquires the ability to fly. Jason Ciaramella and Zach Howard give Hill’s short story enough room to breathe over four chapters applying the maxim that absolute power corrupts absolutely, creating a thriller all the way through as we watch Eric’s moral limitations collapse. There’s no redeeming qualities to Eric, who only sees his incredible ability as a means to petty ends. It’s an incredibly smooth adaptation with Howard’s skilled expressions bringing Eric’s malevolence to memorable life.

That story, as the title suggests, hinges on a cape, and The Cape: 1969 is a prequel explaining, if not the origin of the cape, at least tracing it further back. It’s set during the Vietnam war, and for a fair while it’s a straightforward war story. Ciaramella’s adaptation is strong, but he’s working with weaker material, not least a completely misguided flash forward proving a narrative cheat, and the ending sacrificing emotional strength for visual spectacle. Nelson Dániel supplies that, and doesn’t hold back on the blood, making this a more explicit experience.

Both following longer stories are good without being as compelling, which is strange as Hill writes Wraith himself. This isn’t an adaptation, but a further exploration of Christmasland, the place where Hill’s sinister take on Peter Pan and the lost boys reside and the escaped convicts who arrive there. The problem here is Hill, who writes the story as if a novel requiring too many words to be crammed around Charles Paul Wilson III’s art. It’s a good plot, but overwritten for comics.

Ciaramella adapts Thumbprint, which concerns the mental toll of participating in atrocities as part of the military and what might spin out of it. It’s very much a character study of personalities broken by military service and the how the horrors manifest. Artist Vic Malhotra avoids pandering to lowest tastes via not showing things explicitly, so downplaying the violence. This is horror grounded in reality where a stark and isolated atmosphere prevails until the end.

Rounding off the package is ‘Kodiak’, also found in the Thumbprint graphic novel. Children ask how their father’s face became scarred. It’s a brief and inconsequential piece, really more of an exercise, although very nicely illustrated by Nat Jones.

As a collection this showcases Hill’s variety as a writer. The connecting theme is horror, but within that there’s a war story, one about PTSD, super powers, and two very different forms of fantasy. While nothing following matches the opening adaptation, it’s all strong.

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