Books

The Dresden Files: Storm Front Volume One: The Gathering Storm

By Leroy Douresseaux
June 2, 2009 - 09:52

The Dresden Files: Storm Front Volume One cover image.

Jim Butcher has charmed readers with his character, supernatural private investigator and wizard, Harry Dresden, since The Dresden Files series began with the 2000 novel, Storm Front.  Dabel Brothers Publishing began producing comic book adaptations of the novels with The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle, an original graphic novel and prequel to the series, written by Butcher.

Dabel is also adapting the first Dresden Files novel, Storm Front, as two miniseries.  The first was a four-issue series entitled Storm Front: The Gathering Storm.  Del Rey, which published a hardcover collection of Welcome to the Jungle, is now releasing the hardcover collection, The Dresden Files: Storm Front Volume One: The Gathering Storm.

Harry Dresden is a professional wizard who works as a police consultant and private investigator.  Lt. Karrin Murphy, of the Chicago Police Departments’ Special Investigation section, has called Harry in to investigate a horrible double murder that she believes to have been committed with black magic.  After seeing the corpses of Jennifer Staton and Tommy Tomm, Harry is inclined to agree, and he recognizes that the murderer or murderers would have to be powerful to pull off this kind of magic.  Never a man who turns down a payday, Harry also agrees to search for Monica Sells missing husband, Victor Sells.

Because these are not ordinary homicide and missing person cases, Harry finds himself bumping heads with Chicago mobster Gentleman Johnny Marcone.  Tommy Tomm was Marcone’s bodyguard, and Marcone wants to deal with the killer himself.  If fending off mobsters weren’t enough, Harry tangles with a vampire coven and finds himself constantly under attack by Warden Moran, a member of the White Council, who wants to kill him.  Then, there’s the monstrous assassin coming for him.

[This volume includes a comics version of Jim Butcher’s short story “Restoration,” entitled “Restoration of Faith.”]

THE LOWDOWN:  The Dresden Files is detective fiction set in a fantasy world of magic and the supernatural.  Author Jim Butcher tells the story in a first person narrative from the point of view of Harry Dresden.  The Dresden Files is essentially the fantasy novel told in the vernacular or style of hard-boiled detective fiction.

Having never read the original Storm Front novel, I can’t say if this comic book series is close to its source material, but in his introduction to this volume, Butcher raves about the work of Mark Powers, who wrote the comic book adaptation of Storm Front.  I guess that I can second that emotion.  Many authors who frequent the bestsellers list (like a John Grisham or a Stephen King) have mastered the ability to write pot boilers, engaging novels that have readers flipping through the pages as fast as they can read and not wanting to stop reading until the last page.  Simply, put that’s what Powers has done.  He wrote a comic book that I didn’t want to stop reading.  In fact, I want more… NOW!

The pencil art of Ardian Syaf, who also drew Welcome to the Jungle, in terms of draftsmanship, is vastly improved from Jungle, and he wasn’t bad then.  Everything:  composition, page design, storytelling, etc. is quite good, and the presentation has a slight eye candy vibe.  Rick Ketcham’s precision inking wraps everything in a neat package that enriches this graphic novel’s captivating mood.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Fans of The Dresden Files novels will likely want to try The Dresden Files: Storm Front Volume One: The Gathering Storm, but so will fans of the DC Comics’ Hellblazer.

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Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12