As beautiful, haunting, funny, and brutal as the original novel. The art is amazing, and complements the story perfectly.
My review on Goodreads
I first encountered Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., when my roommate in first-year university was reading Galápagos in an English course. I read the novel and decided it was garbage¹. It just kind of… ended. I didn’t see the point. Vonnegut, I decided, was overrated.
Years later, I decided to give Vonnegut another try, and I read what is, in my mind, his most famous novel: Slaughterhouse-Five. Maybe it’s because I was older, maybe it’s because it was a straight-up antiwar SF novel, maybe it was because I knew better what to expect, but I loved it. I went on to read several other Vonnegut novels (Cat’s Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, Timequake), and I’ve loved each one. Vonnegut’s novels are different, I think, because they don’t generally have a villain. They’re just… the way things are.
So it goes.
And then I heard that Ryan North, of Dinosaur Comics, was involved in a graphic novel retelling of Slaughterhouse-Five, and I knew I had to have it. So I pre-ordered it from McNally Robinson, and it arrived last week.
It’s great. The two-page spreads of Dresden are, respectively, beautiful and horrifying. The story flows like a Vonnegut novel, and the art complements the story so, so well.
Highly recommended for fans of Vonnegut’s novels, graphic novels, or anti-war stories.
¹ When Kurt died and went to Heaven², I re-read Galápagos, and this time I thought it was great.
² At a memorial service for Isaac Asimov, an atheist, Vonnegut—also an atheist—said, “Isaac’s up in Heaven now,” because it was the funniest thing he could think of to say. So it goes. So it goes.