Graveyard Book Graphic Novel vol 2 s/c back

Nobody grew up in a graveyard. And it seemed very normal to him.

A man called Jack killed his parents and older sister but Bod was adopted by ghosts in a graveyard and Silas, a tall, gaunt man who lived by night with skin as pale as the moon.

In the GRAVEYARD BOOK GRAPHIC NOVEL VOL 1 Bod learned all sorts of practical things like how to open Ghoul Gates and survive Night-Gaunts, along with more important lessons about caring for others at all costs. But by and large he did so in a leisurely manner. His night gown seemed to grow with him over the years, but now it's time to put aside childish things because the men who had his parents killed are coming to kill Bod.

It's time to grow up in every conceivable manner, and Bod will have to do that very, very fast, using everything he's learned so far.

After a single introductory chapter drawn by David Lafuente involving an aborted attempt to attend school and a very persistent bully - plus a very funny sub-story about a young man who died furious because as an apprentice he'd been tricked into going in search of red-and-white-striped paint! - this is a startling change of pace with BOOKS OF MAGIC's Scott Hampton carrying the weight of the book as it charges towards its climax. Scott's lines are thinner than usual and the chapter's quite pallid - genuinely scary.

P. Craig Russell returns with Kevin Nowlan and Galen Showman for the finale and it's devastating in a different way but I'll leave you to find out for yourselves.

I love the way Gaiman uses language apposite for whomever it concerns. For example, "Miss Euphemia Horsfall and Tom Sands has been stepping out for many years". You wouldn't use "stepping out" in a current context but it works for them: Euphemia lived between 1861 and 1883; Tom died during The Hundred Years War. "The couple seemed to have no troubles with the difference in their historical periods." That made me smile. And think.