For the curious and the bored.

[knomey.livejournal.com]

Five-page preview of the comic prequel First Death#1 (of 2), ganked from the Dabel Brothers website. I made myself a new icon in celebration.

EDIT: For the curious, the new artist is Wellinton Alves.



For some reason, I find "This was only the seventh dead child I'd ever seen." to be an incredibley awkward sentance. Also... ONLY the seventh? Jesus, Anita, I tripped over four dead children and a drowned cat on my way to the bathroom last night. Try to catch up.

Under the Marvel watermark is a text box that says: "The autumn wind felt coold against my face, but I still felt too hot and a little dizzy."




The last panel on the right hand side? I love it. That cop is going to pee himself for reasons I cannot explain.




If I ever read, "I wanted to run screaming into the night" again, I will kill a man. I will kill THREE men.




Zerbowski is precious. Storr is... ugh. His characterization is so forced it hurts.Or maybe it's the awful facial expressions that the artist has pinned on him.




This whole five-page preview is about as original as xeroxing your ass at work.

Comments

[unrund.livejournal.com]

Uhm ... shouldn´t she be wearing a mini skirt?
Sorry, only thing I can think of currently?

[mneiai.livejournal.com]

Black jeans. Wasn't she always big on black jeans in the first few books?

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

In the last page, on the panel where Anita goes "I don't think I wanted to know that," she looks like she got caught scarfing down a Twinkie.

Is it me, or has the art gotten WORSE? And the little hair squiggle of doom is still in her face.

[missamii.livejournal.com]

I dunno. On the one hand, the bodies look less freakishly proportioned. On the other, everyone seems to be having those weird facial spasms all the time.

[knomey.livejournal.com]

And the little hair squiggle of doom is still in her face.

I really, really hate that little hair squiggle. With all my heart.

[windiain.livejournal.com]

While the squiggle is still there, at least the rest of her hair is behaving. I swear to god, Medusa has NOTHING on how her hair was drawn previously.

[knomey.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I think that would depend on what kind of poisen you'd prefer to die from. If I had a choice, I'd take this guy over Brett Booth. Although, Brett's work does make me laugh at a lot more.

[mneiai.livejournal.com]

Okay, why is she literally white on the first few pages and then actually gets some color in the last few? Srsly, she looks like Mr. Sinister as a demi-hispanic female.

Also, wow, this is definitely not the Anita from the first few books being written, here.

[missamii.livejournal.com]

The reason Dolf's dialogue is so forced is because he's been drafted to be the convenient expository character and they always suck. Anita managed to basically repeat herself within the first four pages. Not a good sign.

[no-ron.livejournal.com]

O_o whoever drew that.. HOW did he get a job in the first place??!!!?!
whoever colored that.. no comment.

do they expect people to pay for it?

[witchwillow.livejournal.com]

Why is Storr more brown than Anita the half Mexican?

As for the rest of it, well I read the Adam Berry review and he hit it on the nail-head. It's the quivalent of PBS storytime, where someone reads from the book and then shows an illustration. It's not got any movement in it at all. It's a series of stills.

Looking at the art, I found myself thinking: This isn't an adaptation. This is a c/p with scribbles.

Comic book adaptation should be a re-telling. The same way a movie is a retelling of the comic. It should be 'how to tell the same story in a different medium'.

G'damn, I hadn't really looked at it before from comics-lovers pov to see the suckage.

[nightmer.livejournal.com]

Icky! Why do all the people look like their faces don't fit on their heads? At least all the contorted facial expressions are amusing.

My first thought was that Anita was supposed to be a man. Specifically, Michael Jackson. NOT GOOD. Somehow I doubt that's the style the artist was going for. Bring back the creepy oversized-thigh people!

[arclights.livejournal.com]

I personally enjoy the Model Pose Cop in the big cop-shot, and Storr's pedo!face. He's nothing at all like I imagined him, but then again I kind of imagined him as a somewhat younger version of that old guy from In The Heat of the Night (plz to be telling me I'm not the only one here old enough to remember that show XD).

[ladymuttly1.livejournal.com]

This is supposed to be the new Anita Blake prequel story? Can you say beyond boring? I almost fell asleep reading the pages.

[randomsome1.livejournal.com]

Same here.

[cassildra.livejournal.com]

Why is her lipstick almost black? It's not sexy.

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

The dead, blood drained out of him kid has more pigment than she does. It just looks stupid. She's not the Crow FFS!

[everstar3.livejournal.com]

Is it me or does it look like her hair ate her hand in the third page, sixth panel?

Sadly, that was the only thing that I found remotely interesting.

[kali921.livejournal.com]

They tried to make Zerbowski hot.

SO WRONG.

So very, very WRONG!

[freyalorelei.livejournal.com]

NO KIDDING. I always pictured Zerbrowski as a small, balding, paunchy man with a perpetual wardrobe of plaid. Not some hip young dude with a goatee. (Although at least they gave him an ugly tie.)

[bellatricky.livejournal.com]

THIS is the prequel story? I have a feeling of deja vu. I thought this was the crime scene in Guilty Pleasures. I KNOW I have read these words and dialogue before.

Also, does this look like kids playing CSI? This does NOT look like any attempt to depict a crime scene I've ever seen. Even in the cheesiest, cheapest, lowest budget productions they have things like a roped off area, flood lights, people not looking for evidence with their *bare hands* and someone taking lots of pictures. Not to mention it's at night and no one has a flashlight, even WAY in the background away from the headlights. Did the artist just phone this one in? Not even trying.

Anyway, Anita now looks a lot closer to the way I originally pictured Anita. I like that she's thick looking, a believable body type for a petite, curvy girl who works out and is supposed to be tough. I like that she doesn't have that ridiculously tiny waist and oversized thighs. I like that her hair isn't sick looking tangled ribbons that have a life of their own.

I still don't like her unrealistic skin tone, that stupid lock of hair, the lipstick, or her facial 'expressions' other than in her first frame and her very last frame. Everything I don't like is probably a reflection of LKH's 'creative control' because these things carried over from the other artist.

Also, why is she dressed like LKH?? *shivers* I can understand wanting to get Anita out of the polo shirt and matching Nike swooshes but she always made a huge whiny deal about wearing her overalls to crime scenes to do that crazy thing called 'preserving the evidence' cops get so snarly about. I mean, with hair like hers, you want to corral it into a ponytail at least. ;)

Not how I pictured Zebrowski or Dolf but it doesn't bother half me as much as the total lack of this looking like a crime scene.

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

erm, that comment was me signed into another lj acct. Ooops. :)

[booster-blue.livejournal.com]

Dolf looks constipated the entire time.

[stickfigurepeep.livejournal.com]

Anita looks like LKH and Darla's love child.

My theory as to why this one looks different is that they got a new inker. It looks to me like a bad ink job... on top of bad art. The others actually weren't inked too badly; there's just only so much you can do with such a crappy foundation. Dolph especially has a lot of improbable lines in his face that might have looked okay in the sketch, but should never have been kept in the final product.

[stickfigurepeep.livejournal.com]

Also, first page... how in the hell did the dead kid manage to claw the air so dramatically while he was, you know... dead? The only thing I can think of is that the beastie that killed him stopped to cuddle long enough for rigor mortis to set in.

[alex-lebeau.livejournal.com]

These are such shitty adaptations. Really, really shitty.

For gods' sakes, a comic book is graphic. That means less need for words and useless descriptions. And she wrote a story directly for this? Good christ. The first page is almost nothing but repeated exposition. We get it; kiddie's dead, looks peaceful, face is left unmauled. Do we need it repeated and/or stated as such? CHRIST NO, WOMAN.

And they even left her punctuation intact. "I don't know what you mean by that Sergeant Storr?" Missing a comma, we are. Urge to kill rising. Death by blunt trauma from English 101 book.

....mother puss bucket...her reasoning for RPIT to hire her is because she's a vampire executioner who actually kills vampires instead of letting the cops do it? What the hell kind of shit is that? I thought she and Manny were the only ones close by. And she even manages to make Manny out to be some kind of bastard loser simply because he has a family to worry about. O NOES. Why is there no basic "Vampires For Dummies" book!? I know this is a useless question, but what the fuck? Anita is a lucky bitch with a gun who has a useless biology degree (for her job) and can raise zombies. WOW. I wish my local cops had that kind of crack reasoning. Just because Manny tries not to die doesn't mean he couldn't have useless information about a murder, if not more experience than said lucky bitch.

Head. Wall. Repeat.

[alex-lebeau.livejournal.com]

Useless=useful, though for this story, quite possibly the same thing.

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

"I don't know what you mean by that Detective Storr" either needs a comma, or is meant to be read out like a robot.

And they misspelled Rodriguez really badly.

[nightangel486.livejournal.com]

I think I have less of a problem with this artwork simply because everyone isn't ridiculously proportioned for once, and Anita's hair looks a *little* better. But yes, annoying curl-in-face needs to die a horrible death.

Otherwise, while the dialogue is basically just a rehashing of stuff rom the first few books, it really, REALLY makes me long for the old days, when, you know, Anita actually had a job ad solved crimes and stuff. I miss Dolph and Zerbrowski...

[cteare.livejournal.com]

I find that hair straggling across the face very annoying.