This graphic novel introduces Terry Pratchett's Discworld through an adaptation of the first two novels in the series. The central character is the hapless wizard Rincewind who is charged with being the guide for Twoflower, the first tourist ever on Discworld. The pair, along with Twoflower's Luggage (a sentient chest that moves on tiny legs), have a series of adventures that play on the tropes of high fantasy and sword and sorcery stories. Meanwhile the gods themselves and a powerful book of magic called Octavo have plans for them.

The adventures are ludicrous and fun and wonderfully illustrated. If there's a flaw is that the story seems to skip around a bit making me wonder how much of the original novel's story was abridged for space. Nevertheless, it's serves as a delightful introduction to Discworld. ( )

3.5 stars. The books are probably better than this (I've only read 'The Colour of Magic') but the art is beautiful. ( )

Strap in folks this is going to be a long one :lol . I feel the need to preface this review by saying i'm actually feeling pretty good right now. I'm also not angry at this work, i'm just disappointed... :P actually bemused would be more accurate.

Before starting this i had very low expectations partially bcause the original books arn't exactly great, but then i thought, maybe this could actually be better than the originals? That feeling did not last long...

The reasons we give the originals a break is mostly because of their age and place in the Pratchett canon but when you repackage something like this any nostalgic feeling is removed. So readers are going to be judging this as an original work and given the weaknesses of the source material it becomes an uphill battle.

Also.. and i can't fault the adaptors on this point because it is difficult to realise at first.. but it turns out Pratchett isn't funny just because of his words, a large portion of the humour is created by timing and the flow of the text across the page. I only know this because when the same jokes are presented in this format they often become completely humourless.

Right enough preamble on to what they did wrong (*spoiler alert*, everything :P ).

The writer is slavishly adherent to the original text, never changing anything that i couuld detect, even when just cutting and pasteing sentences doesn't work for the story. Some might give him points for loyalty but when it adds to a disjointed reading experience he'll get no sympathy from me.

A minor critique of the art (before the major one). Some of the artists asthetic, especially with armour but also sometimes with clothing or architecture; is more appropriate for sci-fi fantasy than high fantasy. I could see some of these designs fitting in a Star-Wars comic.
In addition, somehow the dragon lady and dryad end up looking like the most demure female characters despite their penthouse descriptions in the original, but i expected those to be toned down a tad.
HOWEVER, every other female character goes in the opposite direction, including Deaths daughter. Also random extreme violence for no particular reason. I'd add pictures but i might get banned ¯_(ツ)_/¯ .

Just to keep things terrible there are a few glaring and amateurish errors here and there both in the art and text.
The memorable conversation between The Lady and Fate is ruined. It can be hard to know which text to read next sometimes, which IS a problem with many modern comics but thats usually because of amazing artists who's pictures tend to flow weirdly across the page, this book does not have that excuse.
Sometimes like when the wzards are running from room to room, the speech bubbles just seem to be placed in the wrong places for a natural reading flow.
Also at one point, something which doesn't normally talk replys to Rincewind and he's surprised it can talk.. i was more surprised it was apparently TELEPATHIC as the response was to a 'thought balloon' instead of a 'speech bubble', which was another error just to be clear.

But enough of this lets get to the real problem.. yes indeed, i was just warming up before. The really awful thing about this is the art.
It is utterly humourless.. the wizards (apart from Rincewind) almost work.. but everything else is completely devoid of whimsy, or joy or absurdity. There really is no trace of Pratchett in the art, its just so dead and lifeless and completely incapable of converying the spirit of Discworld.
Interestingly, they switch artists for the last 2 parts of Light Fantastic, and even though he's stuck with the previously established designs.. the new artist almost makes it work. Some of his own design decisions may not be entirely appropriate either but overall, simply the quality of his art pulls through and if the entire thing had been done in that style i'm sure it would have been perfectly adequate.

If you've read Colour of Magic/Light Fantastic before then you'll get nothing of any interest here but if someone unfamiliar with Pratchett were to read this they may never read him again.. and that is quite unforgiveable.

Don't read it, don't sell it on, don't donate it to a library. I would suggest burning every copy but.. you know, apocalypse and all that.. so lets all recycle these into the appropriate bin and if we manage to rid the world of every copy maybe the Gods, or at least the Small Gods will give humanity a reprieve.

ah.. dang it, there goes my New Years resolution not to be mean.. oh well :) ( )

I love Discworld, and I love graphic novels, but this just didn't do it for me. ( )

This book was just a story of pure insanity. Many people love Terry Prachetts stories but I just do not like them much. The whole story was just nonsense after nonsense, none of it made sense. Its kind of like fantasy meets science fiction.

In one way I am glad I read the graphic novel and not the actual novel because my imagination could not conjure up the bizarre images he describes. I mean a trunk with 1000 feet? What the hell? A lot of reviewers say this graphic novel version is lacklustre compared to the novel but I am now certain that I never want to go near any of Terry's stories. I just cant deal with the crazy.

It only doesn't get 1 star because I actually finished it and didn't abandon it halfway through. ( )