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The Dabels have released a full colour preview of ten finished pages from Issue #0 of the adaptation of The Eye of the World.
Bookspotcentral has the 10 images on display:
Pretty cool stuff, though quite different from the style they've used for New Spring.
More comments later.
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More impressions:
They did a great job with the colours - most of it is great anyway, a few pages seems to lack details a bit (the ones with the boys, and all that sky).
It's a lot 'moodier'/impressionistic than the colouring style they had used in New Spring. I don't know yet which I prefer, I'll probably wait for the full issue to decide. Great job on the light and shadows effects on many cells.
I like their depiction of young Egwene - and I'm guessing their model for the older Egwene isn't that much different. I hope Mat isn't too different either, as the character design for young Mat works really well for me.
As I was telling Ernst Dabel at the Wotmania forums when he came to comment on the b&w preview pages, I think their penciller Chase Conley pretty much nailed down the mood of the Two Rivers. He had replied to wait for the colour version as it was even better, and I guess he was right about that. :) I'm quite eager to see the direction they've taken for the village and its surroundings.
The tone of the adaptation is a bit childish, which is exactly the tone RJ had adopted in that Egwene POV. Give or take a few occasional mistakes (wrong forms of address here and thre etc.) Dixon has done a very good job with New Spring, so I've no worry that the tone of the rest of EOTW will again be good. Of course, it's much condensed, but for me with graphic novels the point is to convey the essence and evoke much, and let the reader read more between the lines - and in the visuals themselves. Already I see the sort of good eye for the details that characterized the adaptation of New Spring - keeping those little moments that really smack of RJ for me - Egwene silencing the shepherd dog, for example. Not that I cared especially for that one, but it's a good sign for what's coming. The central piece of Ravens is missing - Egwene with the women, most notably bumping into Nynaeve. Strange they would cut that, as it deprives Ravens of much of its purpose - I guess we may be missing the central pages in this preview.
I don't quite remember from the decription in the book that we would see the Moutains of Mist so much from the Meadow (it's in the other direction, away from the village in the Waterwood well beyond the Jon Thane's Mill, with the village and Westwood in between) but I might be wrong on this. Hard to miss something as massive as the mountain chain whenever one turns to look West, I guess, but I would have expected some sense of the village and the Westwood in the distance. (edit: well, on the last page, I get to see what I had in mind - I guess for the other cells it was was a viewpoint angle affair).
Weird that they changed the title of 'part two' from Ravens to Raven, as well.
But for me it's definitely thumbs up on this adaptation for now. I'm quite eager to get my hands on the full issue, shipping May 13th.
7 comments:
Egwene?
Tam looks way too young to have fought for Illian during the Whitecloak War some 40 years ago. Other than that, it seems alright, though I'll admit that I've never been a fan of graphic novels.
Egwene but at 9 y.o. or so, yes.
It sounds like they combined the 'Dragonmount' prologue and the Ravens prologue for issue #0 (it's 32 pages long, IRRC) - they haven't shown anything from the Dragonmount portion except the bit of cover art (I'm not too fond of, it's the art piece I like the less so far) - but cover art is often very deceptive in comic books, especially when it's not a piece done by the penciller as I think is the case for this one. The two images of Rand and the Myrddraal I found too stylized also turn out to have been drawn by 'guest' cover artists, not representative of the pages' art direction.
Nope. Same guy did the cover and Interiors. Only difference is the coloring styles.
About Tam:
He's supposed to be in his late 40s in that scene, if we take the date of the WC War as reference for his age. He does indeed look too young, but the description of the character by Jordan in Ravens also gives the same impression that he is much younger than 50.
Personally I think there's some kind of mistake in the chronology somewhere and Tam, who is just greying, is younger than the 60 y.o. (or more) he'd need to be to have fought with the Companions in 957 NE. I think either the Whitecloak War lasted longer and ended well after 957 NE (allowing Tam to fight toward its ending only) or the date fo this War is just wrong. IRRC, the date is only mentionned in the Guide, the reason may be that Jordan may have set it too early in his notes without realising it affected Tam's age. I think the most relevant reference to it in the series (beside the mention about Tam fighting it) was that the village of Salidar was abandonned during that War. 40 years is a long time for wood buildings with zero maintenance to still stands and be more or less habitable, IMO.
My feeling is that Tam is mid-forties in EOTW (not too late to remarry, etc.) and in his mid-thirties in 'Ravens' - so the drawing may not be very far off.
What bugs me the most about Tam being 60 is that in the 17th century setting that makes him not middle-years but *ancient*, and a comment by Rand about Old Cenn Buie not being quite as old as Loial makes me think Cenn is only in his 70s (Linda placed him as 80 to 88 - but I think it's too high - he still do thatching and all!). There's also the problem of his friends Abell and co. (Perrin speaks of them as if they are loosely the same ages) - their children are all Rand's age. It's fine for Tam to have married and adopted Rand in his late forties only, but for me it stretches credibility Abell, who is described the same way as Tam (greying etc.) - and Jon Thane who is also of this generation, all had their first child at nearly 50 y.o. At 18 y.o. Rand was coming dangerously close to the marriable age.
So personally I imagine Tam to be in his mid to late 40s in EOTW, and the date of the WC War to be inconsistent. RJ might also have retconned this by saying Moiraine was wrong that Tam fought in that war, if asked.
Hi Derek
You mean the Lews Therin cover of issue 0?
I was under the impression you had not yet shown us the cover art done by the penciller for issue #1just the two variants, one by Jeremy Saliba (the Fade) and the other of Rand by a friend of his, both prominent 'fan art' artists (that was a good idea, btw).
As I was saying in a previous article, they're really nice, though for myself I prefer the style of your penciller.
Tam is described as entirely grey in KoD and having heavily lined features. I'd place Abell at much younger than Tam - after all, 'greying' is pretty vague and comfortably anywhere from mid-thirties onwards.
With regard to Salidar, the Little Tower and several other buildings were stone, not wood. Not too sure about the rest of the buildings, though it is still hard to believe that it would last that long whether they be wooden or stone.
My gut feeling is that the dates for the Whitecloak aren't wrong since it fits well with Niall's age and with Mattin Stepaneos'. Tam's age is old, but not incredibly so, IMO. Remember that the world of WoT does have a big advantage when it comes to Healers, Wisdoms and Aes Sedai. People get sick, they go to a Wisdom and it seems to work. The occurrence of plagues seems to be rare in the Westlands too.
Apart from Cenn, Thom Merrilin is also into his seventies and Pedron Niall into his late 80s (he swore Geofram Bornhald in 63 years before their first meeting). Eleanor of Aquitaine lived to 82 and had 8 children. Rare though it may be, it's possible, especially when one considers the use of magic to extend life and heal things that would otherwise kill in a medieval setting. It's something that just seems to be the case in the world Jordan has created.
Rand would have been very nearly 20 at the start of tEotW, so even if Abell and Jon Thane were 60 at the start of the series, they would have been 40 at the birth of their first child, not nearly 50. Tam was a soldier for a couple of decades, which is part of the excuse why he was older before he settled down. I don't think that holds for the others.
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