Gorgeous art, interesting concept, but I'm not sure what I think of the panel layout. I only read the Emma Bull story, which was okay.

In this graphic novel, Charles Vess illustrates many traditional folk ballads that have been rewritten by some fairly popular fantasy artists like Neil Gaiman or Emma Bull.I didn't realize how many traditional ballads have negative interactions with strangers as their primary topic. According to these stories, any stranger is either a fairy or the devil. If it is a male, he'll either kill you or impregnate you and then come later to take your kid back to whatever magical land he came from. If it...

Charles Vess is an artist I've come across a number of times. His work is instantly identifiable, with lots of long flowing lines and a timeless sensibility, it's easy to imagine his work in a renaissance tome or a fairy-tale library. I personally remember his work in Sandman (the "A Midsummer's Night's Dream" fae story), Fables and the illustrated version of Gaiman's Stardust.From what I gather, this was a labor of love for Vess. He took classic old English and Scottish ballads and had various

This was a very interesting graphic novel.It's not something I probably would have picked up myself - it was a gift, and I was very excited when I opened it!The art isn't my typical graphic novel art aesthetic, but it was very reminiscent of the classic fairytale-type art, so it made it more interesting to me. The idea that these all follow songs was endearing, too.I enjoyed it, but would have never gotten it for myself. Don't judge this book by that fact - pick it up, you might learn some inter...

Very cool concept--a graphic novel made up of illustrated folk ballads retold by popular fantasy authors. Unfortunately, I didn't find the retellings all that compelling; many of them didn't make added sense of the often very sparse ballad storyline, and almost every single one was sexually explicit. I also would have liked notes from the authors explaining their take on the ballads.

The artwork didn't work for me, too busy. The text in the thought balloons was often hard to read. Most of the adaptations were well done and there was a good variety of style. Some of the stories were new to me and I enjoyed reading them.

(B-) 71% | SatisfactoryNotes: The artwork's nicely done, but its stories are hit and miss, and too short to really garner much interest or investment.

The artwork is lovely and I liked Charles Vess' style, but the storytelling is lacking, resulting in a bunch of scattered autoconclusive stories that read disjointed and uneven because they're too independent from each other, and there's no theme in common besides they all being folk ballads from the UK. I think the graphic novel would've benefitted from having a main character as narrator, say: a bard telling each ballad by turns at court/an inn or by a campfire, to give them all a tidy and uni...

This is a difficult book to rate. It would be 5 stars easily for the art, and perhaps 3 stars for the writing. If it were simply the art and the text of the ballads themselves it would likely be a higher rating altogether. What the book is, unfortunately, is not just that, though. It's something altogether a bit different.This book holds within it the text of many traditional ballads, along with a rather jarring bit of Norse saga stories near the tail end that I still don't quite understand. Eve...

The art in this was lovely, and it was interesting getting some insight into the ballads that served as source material. But the introduction and the bonus art were my favorite parts. I wanted more from the individual stories.

I have had this graphic novel on my shelf to read forever. I finally got around to reading it; I originally picked this up because I love Charles Vess’s artwork and thought the concept of him illustrating a whole bunch of traditional ballads sounded really awesome. It was a very good read. Some of the ballads were retold in really wonderful ways, others were just excerpts from the original ballads.This book consists of a series of traditional ballads. The ballads are first told via graphic novel...

Up until I saw the call-number for this book at the library, I'd assumed it was a heavily illustrated anthology of short stories.Instead, it's in graphic novel form rather than prose form. This disappointed me a bit since I'd much rather read prose than a graphic novel. However, less writing means more room to showcase Vess's lovely artwork.In collections of retold fairy tales, I'm used to authors taking a lot of liberty with the material they're working with. Part of the fun is seeing what thin...

Vess is a wonderful, award winning illustrator, creating detailed, intricate black and white drawings in the style of Franklin Booth (look him up - amazing pen and ink illustrations!)and Arthur Rakham. The book is worth the time for the artwork alone - it won an Eisner award; high praise in the world of graphic novels and comic books.But wait, there is more! The stories illustrated in this volume are illustrated adaptations of English and Scottish ballad, written by his favorite writer-friends,

Charles Vess has taken a selection of British and American ballads (folk songs) from the collection of Francis James Child and had them written up by prominent comic book authors into stories for him to illustrate. His elfin, Arthur Rackham-influenced style is well-suited to these uncanny tales of fairies, enchantments, and tragedies.I wonder if Vess is a fan of the folk-rock band Steeleye Span, which has done its own versions of quite a number of the ballads included.

Feels like a longer read because of the repetitive feel. But still a great way to learn about an old form of literature.

This is a collection of slightly retold English/British ballads by various authors illustrated by Charles Vess.The introduction by Terri Windling was especially wonderful to read. I don't know much about ballads at all (my definition of them before were "sappy slow songs") and she wrote in an intriguing style. Good resources, too.I also like the format of book. After each story, the actual ballad is written, so we can either compare, or also read the original for our knowledge and pleasure."The

Ballads were little known to the literate world until the 18th century, when scholars began writing them down. Since then, they've received attention from folklorists, folksingers and, now, cartoonist Vess. I've been a fan of Charles Vess's art since I first saw him in Sandman and Stardust, and to be honest this book was not only a delightful display of his talent but also an enjoying book of ballads and tales from yore. Vess and his collaborators put a little meat on the ballads' often bare-bon...

I agree with Delia Sherman in the introduction: the best part of these ballads is that they don't reveal a motive. It is more like there is no real story, but just this idea. It's interesting these ballads can inspire something seemingly irrelevant to themselves; the most important thing that can be said about them is they inspire thought. They are mysterious and inconclusive enough to do that.I suppose what I like best is the elf setting of a lot of these. Druids and fawns, and faerie queens ar...