Review: Storm Front (comic) by Jim Butcher

Earlier this week, my copy of Storm Front, Volume 1 — The Gathering Storm arrived. This is the comic book adaptation of a book written by Jim Butcher about 10 years ago (currently available in paperback as well as on the Kindle) and recently put into comic book form by the Dabel Brothers, the same group that is also handling the comicization of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time.

I was first introduced to this series by a friend of mine in the form of the short lived TV series. After having watched (and thoroughly enjoyed) the TV show, I decided that I wanted to read the series; fortunately, I had gotten most of the series when a friend upgraded his library to ebooks (Why, yes, I will take a bunch of free books off your hands…). After reading through all the current books, I wanted more, so I checked Amazon for more Dresden Files stuff and found Welcome to the Jungle, a Dresden Files Comic that isn’t based on any book that had been written thus far, and in fact takes place before the series starts. After having procured and reviewed this book, I found out about the subject for this article and resolved to pre-order said subject.

The comic includes the first 4 “chapters” (aka 4 issues) of the story. When I originally ordered it, I was under the impression it was the whole story, but alas it changed into just the first volume, with a second one coming later this year (currently listed as October 27, 2009), which will hopefully wrap up the story.

The artwork is wonderful and very true to the books (a fact Jim Butcher stresses in his introduction); Ardian Syaf did a wonderful job with all of the artwork. Various parts of the story are accelerated, but that is to be expected in any adaptation; thus far I have no complaints about how Mark Powers has adapted the story and hope he gets to continue the adaptations for the rest of the series.

Bottom line: if you are a fan of The Dresden Files, you should get your hands on this little gem.