Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation (2009)

Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation (2009)

Author: Ray Bradbury | Illustrator: Tim Hamilton | Page Count: 149

"Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling. The public, knowing what it wanted, let the comic books survive."

A comic book adaptation of Ray Bradbury's classic F451 story. I've reviewed the original novel already (see HERE), so I won't go over the plot again.

This particular transition from novel to comic is fully authorised by Bradbury, so you'd expect a faithful retelling. He didn't let just anyone have his works. (He once told his publisher to "go to hell" when they wanted to release F451 as an e-book. Sadly, he was forced to give in, once more proving that the book publishing world has caught up with the film world in not giving a damn about the author's intentions).

It uses Bradbury's dialogue but much of his descriptive language is lost, and it's that part of writing that he excels in, whereas his character dialogue can be simplistic and minimal.

Also, parts of the story are absent. I was expecting that, but mercifully it's not enough to dilute the story too much. It's heavily abridged but it's not overly dismissive. Some of the changes are acceptable (in order to facilitate a different medium) while some others arguably aren't. It retains the same concerns and sense of urgency in action, but the loss of that descriptive language is a severe handicap, especially during the ending, which is hurried and somewhat lifeless.

The artwork is excellent. The frame is never cluttered, it shows only what's necessary or important and does it from some interesting angles. On the down side, it's that lazy digital colouring technique that I really don't like; it's turning comics into a standardised art form that keeps everything the same - ironically similar to one of the themes of the novel.

It uses a muted palette of earthy browns and cold blues, which contrasts beautifully with the fiery oranges and yellows of the flames when the firemen do their thing.

But the best part of the colouring, for me, is the wonderful use of shadows and blacks; they're deep and symbolic, casting faces in gloom and insinuating secrets and character failings. It reminded me often of Tim Sale's work on Batman, or the colouring in Mike Mignola's Hellboy comics.

Ultimately, I feel that there's too much missing from the abridged story for me to recommend the book as an alternative to the novel, but there's enough included to perhaps inspire someone to move from the pictures to the prose, so, in that respect, it's partially successful.