Hurrah For Graphic Non-Violence

Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl has all requirements for a classic Hollywood anti-hero – he’s smart, sassy, and capable of a moral ambiguity that’d curl Harry Potter’s wand without ever resorting to tiresomely graphic violence, which is nice when it comes to the all-important age ratings. Now Artemis is available in graphic novel format, ingeniously titled ARTEMIS FOWL: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL – or, as we like to think of it, a movie storyboard. Quoth Publisher’s Weekly:

Written by Colfer and Andrew Donkin, with art by Giovanni Rigano, the graphic novel is based on the first book in the five-book Artemis Fowl prose series and is being published simultaneously in hardcover and paperback editions, with an initial print run totalling 100,000 copies … Colfer teamed with the experienced comic artist Andrew Donkin, whose works include BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK NIGHT (DC), to ensure the pacing was right … Together, the far-flung team has created a dark, lush, eerie world which … brings Fowl, a ne’er-do-well boy genius, his allies and his enemies to life. Information sheets, mimicking government agency surveillance files, help introduce characters and allow novices to the Fowl world to keep up. While there is always concern that fans will criticize the visual representation of characters they themselves have been imagining for years, so far … the main response from devoted readers has been “excitement.”