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Magician: Apprentice #1
Dabel Brothers
Writer: Raymond E Feist
Adapted: Michael Avon Oeming and Brian J.L. Glass
Art: Brett Booth
Colouring: Jess Booth

Before delving into the qualities, positives and negatives of Magician #1 it is worth noting that this is to my mind the first MAJOR fantasy works adapted to comic book. With due respect to what has come before, Magician is the most recognisable fantasy book to be converted and as such deserves both credit for being created and scrutiny as the benchmark of future works. It will be a marker on which to base the viability of such adaptations/conversions and also a reflection of how fit recognisable, multi-book series are for the comic book format. With that in mind and a warning that this review contains spoilers, let’s begin.

Magician is the first book in a massive on-going fantasy series by writer Raymond E Feist. Set on the world of Midkemia, it is the tale of two kitchen boys, Tomas and Pug, who stumble upon a strange shipwreck that appears to be from another planet. This leads to the discovery that invaders from the other planet, Kelewan, have found a way to create and use rifts to move across space. As Tomas learns to be a soldier and Pug a magician, the 'Riftwar' begins, changing the lives of the two boys forever.

Magician holds significance for me personally as the first book of a large-scale fantasy series I ever started, way back when. With the passage of time it has also come to represent an incredibly well suited beginning to such a saga, being a great attempt at a first novel. The comic book unfortunately doesn’t have quite the same effect. Starting with an unimpressive looking castle, quite unlike what one imagines how Castle Crydee should appear, there seems a slightly juvenile tone that suggests the comic is aimed at a young teenage age group. This is where the important first factor of converting major works to the comic book format comes in, perception. With a novel the reader is given the freedom to imagine and perceive characters however they so choose, based on the reader’s personal attributes, such as age, and their sensibilities. So being tied down to a specific vision, which will in all likelihood be different from the one created by the reader, there will invariably be an initial ‘shock’ factor. “That isn’t Pug”, “This isn’t what happens” etc.

This is the point where you realise, as I did, that our memories of the novel are slightly rose-tinted and based in the past (I haven’t read Magician in at least six years) So coming back to a piece that isn’t what you remembered is a surprise at first, but once you move beyond that then there is an entertaining comic to be read. The storyline has been altered slightly by Brian Glass and Michael Oeming, so that those unfamiliar with the story of Magician or the series don’t need to play catch-up. Thus the opening, with aforementioned overly small castle, immediately introduces us to Pug, Tomas and their relationship. For the much reduced format of comic books this works well, establishing the important bond that will last decades whilst moving the story along in a timely manner befitting twenty two pages of comic. Megar the cook and his wife, who seem a touch young and a little meaner than I remember, are also introduced early. Their importance as a ‘family’ for the orphan Pug seems to have been negated from the outset, perhaps in order to remove too much unnecessary exposition from the streamlined comic. This has the effect of making the opening a little more sinister and hopeless than the novel, especially when Pug is then seen lusting after the princess rather than coming across her by chance.

The early artwork, by Brett Booth, is solid without being ground breaking and the use of blue in colouring is overdone, even if purposefully so. Pug looks a little on the feminine side, mostly the lips, and many of the characters facial expressions appear stern and tight. However once the beach scene is reached the quality improves greatly. In the book Feist doesn’t do the greatest job of convincing the reader how dangerous the incoming tide is to Pug’s health as he falls asleep, the comic book in contrast paints a very hazardous picture that impresses both visually in it’s frantic nature and in expressing the very real threat in the situation. It is only in reading back through this section that I noticed how clever Jess Booth’s colouring of this section is, the overly powerful blue slowly fading into grey and then black as the day gives way to night.

Here then we are introduced to the first genuine conflict, Pug versus the boar. The dark panels do well to show a large amount of detail and the sparsely used lighting of the storm conveys the contrast between panicked child and aggressive animal superbly. The panelling is also intelligent, balancing the need for impact from the larger sections with the progression and information of the smaller, sequential panels. The intervention of Meecham at the end of Pug’s ordeal is cinematic in its fade out, through Pug’s loss of consciousness, to the home of Kulgan. Kulgan is the classic wizard stereotype; short, grey-haired with a long beard and pipe. Here to me Brett Booth’s artwork struggles, not due to a lack of quality but to an over-doing of detail. The internal sections, predominantly set in Kulgan’s home, are a bit too harsh on the eye in so many small panels, and for the lack of exposition in this segment a more simplistic approach would have fared better. Nonetheless there are several enjoyable moments, the introduction of a wonderfully drawn Fantus adds to the familiarity of the comic and the beautifully coloured scene showing Pug’s use of the viewing crystal gives a first glimpse at his power. Glass and Oeming do a good job of keeping exposition to a minimum, happily sticking with speech bubbles only - in contrast to the Dabel Brothers text heavy Red Prophet adaptation. This allows the comic a fluid approach that integrates animation and speech to do the storytelling.

Magician’s final two pages move away from Pug to deal with the wider story that will eventually impose itself on Pug’s life. The introduction of the elves and Elvandar so early in the story, if only for a few pages, is not unwelcome but the darkness of the whole scene does not fit. Despite being a night scene the clothes are dark, the trees are dark, it is the kind of picture one would assume more accurate in portraying the Brotherhood of the Dark Path (moredhel), which may cause confusion later in the series if the differences are not clearly defined and the Booth’s stick with the same colour scheme.

Overall Magician #1 is very promising. There are minor issues of style, as was always going to be the case, but the main foundations have been laid and the importance of tying the novel to a visual format achieved. The only other problems are the: length – for a first issue I’m sure something larger and bolder than a 22 page comic of such a well known and loved story wouldn’t have been out of the question, and also the regularity – once a month for something so small (perhaps this is more a general gripe on the comics industry overall) when the novel is readily available to continue the story without a need to wait, makes me wonder how well later issues will do. Pessimism aside it’s a solid start for all involved with the potential to flourish into something special given time.

Owen Jones © 2006