Rating: Teen+
Cover: Chris McGrath
Writer: Jim Butcher, Mark Powers
Artist: Joe Cooper
Genre: Action/Adventure
Publication Date: February 2022
Format: Hardcover
Page Count: 120
Chicago’s only professional wizard, IS BACK AND READY FOR ACTION, in the new entry in the #1 New York Times best-selling Dresden Files.
Harry Dresden, Is working for Bigfoot. Three hard-to-find Dresden short stories reimagined and interwoven with additional material to make a wholly original graphic novel story featuring Harry taking on a case and going undercover to watch over Irwin Pounder, Bigfoots Scion.
Featuring a cover by Chris McGrath the current Dresden Files prose cover artist.
Don’t miss this sixth all-new graphic novel story set in the official Dresden Files continuity and exclusive to Dynamite.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5241-2129-7
For starters, I want to be very clear when I say that I am a HUGE fan of The Dresden Files novels. It’s currently my favorite series and while I was extremely late to the party (only starting books a little over two years ago) I have read through the series twice and I’m pondering a third run. In short, I’m a fan.
That being said….I have not read a Dresden comic in a long time (the Dable Bros days). Not that they are terribly written or drawn, I just feel like they were missing some of the magic (pun intended) that novels created. Everything seemed rushed. Kind of like when your favorite book gets turned into a movie. It usually feels like the creators missed something. Like they tried to cram too much story into a comic mini-series. NOT THE CASE HERE! Maybe it has to do with the fact the Bigfoot stories were already short form. They fit the comic book medium perfectly.
This hardcover is broken into three separate stories where Harry gets hired by one of the forest people (aka Sasquatch, aka Bigfoot) to look in on his sion son. A sion is the offspring of a magical creature and a human. So we are privy to a story of a child of bigfoot grade school, high school, and college. Each pertaining to issues Irwin (son of bigfoot) is dealing with at the time. In part one, we see a grade school Irwin as a skinny nerd who just wants to read sci-fi, eat his veggies, and be left alone. But like so many other kids that enjoy those things he’s getting bullied. Wizard Harry Dresden would live to step in and save the day, but Irwin learns a more important lesson. In part two we see Irwin at the beginning years of a boarding school where he’s fallen ill….and that doesn’t happen to sions. Harry steps in and finds the mystical culprit of Irwin’s ailment. In part three, Irwin is in college and beast on the football field. He’s dating a very hot blonde and things get very adult….like very adult. Seriously, EXPLICIT WARNING before you dig into part three. It involves sex and vampires and they don’t skimp on the visuals.
Kudos should be heaped upon Mark Powers for expertly adapting Butcher’s story to the comic medium. There was enough in the wordsmithing to give me that familiar feeling of when I read the books with just enough to make it feel fresh and not a cut and paste. Harry’s internal and external monologue is part of the greatness behind The Dresden Files and Powers is able to capture that perfectly in the comics. Nothing feels rushed or left out of the story. Powers hits it right out of the park.
Joe Cooper also did an excellent job on the visuals of the book. Another daunting task because as any fan of a book can tell you, we’ve already cast all the characters of the book in our head. The look of every character was spot on. Harry with his lanky disheveled shelf, Irwin in all the stages of this life, and River Shoulders (aka bigfoot) were how I pictured them in my head. He pulls off the lighthearted when it’s supposed to be light and the dark when it’s dark. Applause all around.
Bottom Line: This is a hell of a good time and totally worthy of any collection.
Score: 11/13
