P. Craig Russell

Russell's adaptation work is, as usual, exquisite, with my favourite Mowgli story, "The King's Ankus", being everything I would want here. My only real complaint is that there on occasion, particularly in the oldest of the three adaptations here collected, is a lack of clarity in the order of the speech bubbles (and, albeit rarely, even who is speaking), and that in "Red Dog", the intense sequence of Mowgli's run across the cliffs feels a bit distanced and over and done with much too quickly -- a disappointment, as it was something I had looked very much forward to.

But everything else is positive. The artwork is lovely and lively both, nothing ever feeling static. Kipling's wonderful prose and dialogue is carefully selected and catered, and it is a huge regret to me that Russell did only these last three stories himself, only having inked some of the earlier Mowgli adaptations previously in his career.… (mere)

I was honestly disappointed when I found out that P. Craig Russell had not in fact done all of the art for this comics adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology. He did fully illustrate the prologue and the first chapter, and he provided covers for all of the original floppy comics--which are happily appended here, along with beautiful alternate covers by David Mack. For the other five chapters, Russell's scripts and layouts were rendered by other artists. While none of these were as good as Russell--who has been one of my very favorite comics artists for decades--they are all capable, and I liked a few of them very much. Russell's eye is detectable in the layouts throughout.

Russell's opening offers the Norse cosmogony, including its formative theomachy. It doesn't feature any of the Asgardian gods other than Odin, who has yet to acquire some of his distinctive characteristics. So it is only in later chapters that the reader gets to see visual designs of Thor, Freya, Tyr, Loki, and others.

My favorite non-Russell art in the book was from Mike Mignola and Piotr Kowalski. I think both of these artists' styles, while distinctive and interesting in their own right, are well suited to collaboration with Russell. Mignola's chapter on "Mimir's Head and Odin's Eye" was excellent, though short. Kowalski's "Master Builder" was a real high point.

The final two chapters were illustrated by David Rubin and Jill Thompson, both of whom served as their own colorists, and offered more painterly art than what was in the previous sections of the book. I actively liked Thompson's work here, but I wasn't much taken with Rubin's.

I haven't read Gaiman's book that served as the basis for this one, but the mythology here is much as I remember it from other sources I encountered in childhood, such as Hamilton Wright Mabie. Russell and Gaiman have worked on many projects in the past, including graphic versions of Coraline and The Graveyard Book. This project is one suited to both of their demonstrated interests and abilities.… (mere)