BookWyrm: Green Arrow: Longbow Hunter Trilogy.

I haven't reviewed a comic or graphic novel here before, because I don't read a lot of them anymore. So, first let me tell you why I love them.

Graphic novels, good ones, (and not comics, if to you comics means Sunday funnies) have a unique quality for me. They combine the visual stimulation you get watching a movie: seeing the tiny details that make a space real to your mind, and the emotional connection I get reading a novel: their voices are your voice. They sound, silently yet in my ears, the way I would sound if I was feeling what they're feeling. It's why I love reading: I become the character, I relate to the character, I'm emotionally invested in the characters. I cheer and cry and fear with them. With a graphic novel I combine that emotional investment with the visual scene. I'm use to making up my own scene, but there are still things you don't "see" because your mind is busy with everything else. It's why people can get "lost" in movies, and "lost" in a book, but they feel different. A good graphic novel lets you combine both of those aspects into an amazing feeling.

I get THAT feeling when I'm reading the Green Arrow: Longbow Hunters trilogy. Uh-mazing. Absolutely thrilled; I had to breathe and slow my heart down. I had to take breaks at the end of each edition, the way I need a processing break when I finish a great movie or book. The art is fantastic! I adore the chalk portraits tucked in. And the line portraits! The story is well-written. The arc makes sense, the twists are engaging, the dialogue is human, it's all written very well.

In the immortal words of Michaelangelo: MUWAH! I'm in Loooove!
No really he said that. Only he was green at the time.

The Robin Hood painting, and one of the chalks.
I really do want that portrait for my own!

Some of my favorite things:

* "Spend a lifetime shooting one arrow. Make that one perfect shot an expression of all that you are." - Longbow Hunters #2.
* He dances the Lindy!!
* The Robin Hood "painting". I had to steal it for my desktop.
* Lawl, man-sack on #2-p29. No really, because you don't freaking see that, ANYWHERE. Oh sure you see hints (sometimes baseball-bat subtle) of female anatomy in every comic everywhere, and maybe even penis bulge in a uniform or something, but when's the last time you saw any sack? It's just, unique. I don't know if that makes any sense, that I love it because it's unique and I'm not being pervy, it really is artistically interesting. And funny. I find it very funny; because they got away with it.
* The man is just good looking. Hat tip to the artist for the details too: I love the stitches in his uniform, and his Van Dyke. And the fuzzy chest. All the new super heroes are waxed or something, and I like that the 1987 version of the Green Arrow has some manly fuzz goin' on.

I know they spill off the page a bit, but I don't want them too small. You need to see the detail in this fantastic work.

I love it. Now. My local library has it, yours might too. Go. Now.