Mythical Monster Stories
It is quite rare that I get sent books of any type these days. It is even more rare for me to get sent a graphic novel. So I was very surprised when Peter Dobbin asked me if I would like a review copy of his book, Mythical Monster Stories.
Dobbin is a professional artist, with many years experience in computer games and illustration. You can see some of his work on his website. Most interestingly from my point of view, he worked on a computer game based on The War of the Worlds. He’s also been involved in a couple of games about that boy wizard chap. Mythical Monster Stories is more of a personal project.
What Dobbin has done with the book is collect monster stories from around the world, do a feature image of each one, and also write a page or so of comic story about the monster doing the thing it is best known for. The book features 39 monsters from all corners of the globe. There are some famous names such as the sasquatch, banshee and yeti, but there are many that I had not previously heard of.
‘Madremonte’
The feature illustrations are, as I hope you can see from the few I have featured here, absolutely spectacular. If you like beautiful art, the book is well worth it for that alone. I note that the book more than doubled its goal when Dobbin ran a Kickstarter campaign for it.
The comic art is inevitably simpler, and the panels are drawn in shades of blue-gray rather than full colour. The story plots are interesting, and often heartwarming, but the actual text is a little simplistic. I have some sympathy here, firstly because Dobbin is still far better at words than I am at art; and also because he’s very limited on space. It is a small criticism, but one you notice because the rest of the book is so beautiful.
‘Basilisk Attack’
Dobbin tells me that he’s working on a second book, and I’m sure that will breeze through Kickstarter as easily as this one did.
For complicated Amazon reasons, the book is currently unavailable at Amazon. Hopefully it will be back soon. But you can get it from Waterstones.
‘Book Opening’
Title: Mythical Monster Stories
By: Peter Dobbin
Publisher: Twisted Spirit
Purchase links:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
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