Magician Apprentice - Volume 2 [Paperback]

I, like many people, skipped buying the comics for this. It's just too cool and too convenient to have them all bound together into a single book.

1/3 of 1/2 of Magician? huh?
- Magician is a book, it's a great book, along the lines of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, but far more accessible, but just as epic, if not more so, and much more detailed. I highly highly recommend reading it if you haven't.
- Magician Apprentice, is 1/2 of Magician, and is released as a paperback book of it's own.
- This book, Magician Apprentice Volume 2 (the graphic novel by the Dabel brothers and published by Marvel), is 1/3 of Magician Apprentice.

What's the book about? (no spoilers):
Well, this volume 2 continues the story of pug and thomas, and their travels across midkemia to warn the prince of krondor and rally his support against the coming invasion from the otherworldly Tsurani army. The story begins at castle crydee with a troop of soldiers leaving for a winter journey across midkemia through danger ridden forests. This is a story of magic, adventure, coming of age, and danger. It's a dashing bold adventure about magic, fighting, exploration, court intrigue, and you need to know about it. :)

Art:
The art is certainly improved, and holds up really well in this volume. In Volume 1, they changed artists 1/2 way through, and the art kind of changes abruptly and degraded in quality, but then gets better and better. In Volume 2, the art is good, and you wont think anything of it if you had seen the 1st volume. It appears to be the same artist, but he's really got his style down and it's great. And everyone will think so. The coloring is full color (shaded with gradients), glossy pages, it's quality stuff for your eyes to behold.

Story:
The story has been adapted to the comic style really well. It's been a while, maybe 8 years since I last read the book Magician (and I've read it maybe 3 times total), and it really makes sense and I think does not lose anything from the books (it tells the story, and shows you the details in the pictures). The artists do a great job framing the scenes, and you can really tell they read the book and worked hard to match up concepts in the books in the imagery. The images tell the story as much as the word bubbles do. A lot of thought was put into this.

Quality:
The book feels great, hard cover, about the size of a comic book, but thicker, since there's 6 (episode 7-12) in there... The pages are full color, and beautifully colored with the full spectrum with smooth gradients. Much attention to detail has been put into this book.

Convenience:
It's great to have 6 comics bound together into one book. I am not a comic fan, and I really don't like buying all the thin little books. It's too annoying for me. I would prefer all 18 bound in an uber book. But 3 volumes is fine by me, I can do that... And all 18 might be a little unwieldy to hold anyway, it would make for a heavy book... So I like it this way, just fine, in 3 volumes. Thank marvel for pulling the 6 comics together into a single book. :)

While you're all waiting for Volume 3, go read Magician, the book. It seriously rocks.

Many people have read Magician Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist. Everyone interpreted the characters differently because we all have different points of reference for the descriptions used for the characters. The artist excellently depicted the characters and attitudes along with the atmosphere for the book. Only problem ... I wanted MORE! And ended up digging out my own book of Magician Apprentice to reread it once again.

› Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews  5.0 out of 5 stars