Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Rod Serling's Twilight Zone graphic novels adapted by Mark Kneece (Walker, 2008)

Cindy: I grew up watching Creature Feature and Twilight Zone...and checking out LPs from the public library so I could listen to Bill Cosby try to scare me to death with his "Chicken Heart" story. It's not cool enough that CBS and Hulu.com let us watch the many of the original Rod Serling Twilight Zone episodes, but now Walker & Company is publishing graphic novel adaptations of eight of the classic shows! The first two are out and The After Hours is definitely the creepier one. A young woman shops for a gift for her mother in a department store but when she tries to return the damaged item the floor she visited doesn't exist, and that isn't the only strange thing about the store. This one brings to mind the vintage Richard Peck YA novel, Secrets of the Shopping Mall. The art is great and reflects the mood--and the story is faithful to the original television script. The introduction, notes from the author, and credits for the television episode add to the package. I want this episode adapted next: Time Enough at Last: "A bookworm yearns for more time to read - then a nuclear holocaust leaves him alone in the world with lots of time, plenty to read and one ironic twist!" Yours from another dimension...
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Lynn: Start the theme music running in your head, open Walking Distance and settle in for a quintessential Twilight Zone experience. An over-stressed businessman has car trouble just a mile and a half from the hometown he hasn’t visited in twenty years. Nostalgic for a simpler time, he walks to town only to discover that he has walked back in time. Large, easy-to-read panels make this visually appealing and the introduction provides plenty of information for the newbie. I’m eager to hear what our teens think but I'm betting these will be popular.

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