The Hobbit (Graphic Novel Adaptation)

It has been a long time since I read J.R.R Tolkien's The Hobbit.  Influenced by a review I read at The Book Mine Set, I decided that I would read the graphic novel adaptation of The Hobbit, by David Wenzel and Charles Dixon.  After all, it was just sitting on a shelf.  (I bought it for my husband about four years ago.)  Some of what John at The Book Mine Set said, plus my own memories of the original novel, made me want to see (read) for myself.  Even though I had been planning on reading something else, it was a graphic novel and those don't take long.

I think The Hobbit adaptation is the longest graphic novel I've read.  I haven't read a lot, but I've been reading a few each year for the past while.  Enough to think that at 134 pages, it's long.  It wasn't even just the page count.  There were a lot of those descriptive/narration boxes everywhere (I don't know what they're actually called).  I'm used to the pictures telling the story, with dialogue bubbles and the occasional box.  It didn't make the novel bad, it just made it take a lot longer than I thought it would.
Reading The Hobbit graphic novel, I found myself having similar issues to the ones I had with Dracula.  It was a combination of knowing what would happen, plus not being sure if i was remembering it right and wondering if there were changes made in the adaptation.  It's been over ten years since I read The Hobbit.  It looks like I might have to read it again.  Especially with the movie coming out in December, I want to make sure I remember it right.

One, possibly minor problem i had while reading it, Why did I keep expecting the drawings to look like the actors from the movie, especially Elrond?  The book is separate from the movie.  Maybe part of that issue was that I expected the elves specifically to look different.  Not necessarily ethereal or wispy, but they looked so much like humans, that I had a difficult time identifying them immediately.  Otherwise, I thought the art was just fine.

If you like Tolkien's The Hobbit and you like graphic novels, you may like this book.  I liked it, but I don't think it really changed or enhanced my connection to the original story.  Would I read it before or instead of the original novel? No. It's good, but no way that good.  It was an okay little diversion and reminder of a great movie to come.