The Last Unicorn

original story by Peter S. Beagle, adaptation by Peter B. Gillis, art by Renae De Liz, 167 pages

An immortal unicorn goes in search of her missing brethren.

This graphic adaptation of Beagle's classic fantasy novel sports lush, attractive artwork (though it's more contemporary American comic book style and less classically illustrative, which I would have preferred, but that's just my personal taste talking) and does a decent job of transferring the original's wondermous text into a more visual medium. However, I think the compression required to squeeze the tale into 167 pages makes the narrative read awkwardly, even for someone familiar with the original story. This is particularly problematic once the unicorn and her companions arrive at Haggard's castle, where gaps of time--in which relationships are forged and clues are searched for--are so glossed over that the uninitiated reader has no idea how things arrived at point B from point A or what exactly the characters are talking about so eloquently in any given panel (for instance, the sleepwalking scene on the stairs). Also, there's a noticeable lack of beat panels. Reaction shots help give rhythm and flow to a narrative, textlessly smoothing transitions in mood and scene. But here, they are missing. For example, there is a scene in which someone shoots an arrow that narrowly misses another's chattering head before planting itself in a tree trunk behind him. The almost-shot man's dialogue bubble in which he comments on the offending arrow is above the just-landed shaft, rather than below it (or, better yet, in a separate panel below it, which would have left his surprised, wordless face to say volumes before he responded out loud) and so it appears he's talking about it before it happens and that he never stops yammering and has no physical or emotional reaction to being irately cut-off and nearly killed. If the adaptors, who clearly love and respect the source material, had had more pages to work with, and the artist had worked in a few more visual beats, I think this could have been wonderful, but as it is I am a little disappointed. It's like skipping a stone across the water and only getting random glimpses of the depths where the stone skims the surface.

If you haven't read the original novel, I can't recommend you pick this up unless you just want to look at the pretty pictures, as it will make very little sense. For fans of the book, however, this adds another facet to the richness of the story, but only because you'll be able to bridge the gaps and fill in the blanks for yourself.