Sunday, October 2, 2016

True Grit Mean Business Graphic Novel


Rating: WORTHY!

Based on the Charles Portis novel which I reviewed favorably very recently, this is a promotional graphic novel put out by Paramount Studios, and is a free download from Barnes & Noble and perhaps other online sources too. Paramount released an updated version of True Grit in 2010, this time starring Jeff Bridges in place of John Wayne, Matt Damon in place f Glenn Campbell, Hailee Steinfeld in place of Kim Darby, and Barry Pepper in place of Robert Duvall. I watched both movie yesterday and while the earlier movie was slightly more humorous, the updated version (which cost as much to make as the original made in receipts!) was definitely the better movie, and adhered more closely to the novel despite being a Coen brothers vehicle.

I guess the copyright was coming to a close, and if they didn't put out a new version of it, paramount would lose the rights to it. The art by Christian Wildgoose is very well done, although being in comic book format, it ill fits the screen on my tablet and enlarging it doesn't help because then it becomes a separate image which you cannot swipe to get to the next page - you have to close the image and then swipe! Naturally the text is too small which is frequently a problem with =e-comics. Normally I like my Nook app - it's far better than the crappy Amazon Kindle app, but it too has issues. The art is black and white line drawings.

The comic is very short and tells the story recounted by Marshall Cogburn in the courtroom at the beginning of the novel, of the slaughter and robbery at the spotted-gourd ranch. It's worth a read, especially since it's free, but I would have enjoyed a longer one more - especially if it had been the whole novel.