I do not want to play the villain in the discussion concerning the French graphic novel adapting Thompson, but to me it's not an achievement. Far from it.
Miles Hyman did terrific COVERS for a French series (Le Poulpe) of novels. He's an illustrator and IMO this deserves him here and also the story he tries to tell in his transposition of Savage Night: the continuity is not very good, there is a lack of expressive moods and the drawing, generally speaking, is too hieratic… In short I do not find the Thompson ambiances in that graphic novel.
The scenario is rather faithful to the original story, but is too talky, which cripples even more the result after Hyman's treatment.
I reviewed this graphic novel, and as I said therein: Too much of Hyman, too little of Thompson. One or two beautiful or good images does not make a good graphic novel.
For those who read French, the reviews of the first 4 titles and the presentation I made of this new collection of graphic novels all based on noir/HB lit. novels (Rivages/Casterman/Noir) that were published in French by Rivages (publishing house) are at:
http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir/casesnoires_castermanriv.html
A real disaster is the adaptation of Westlake's Hot Rock in that collection.
The best one, a very good graphic novel, is based on a French novel by Pierre Pelot, cleverly transposed in the drawings and continuity of the graphic story.
In September, they will publish an adaptation of Shutter Island.
I send a copy of my message to those embarked in the thread, as recently my messages still do not make it easily to R-A, after Yahoo changed some settings in his Groups and mailing.
E.Borgers
POLAR NOIR http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir
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