While our coverage of all things "Twilight"-related usually consists of "Kristen Stewart sucks," get ready for a Lemondrop bombshell: "Twilight: The Graphic Novel"? It's really not that bad.
I know what you're thinking: Those books are dreck, with awkward prose and ridiculous sparkling vampires. Vampires don't sparkle! Well, in the "Twilight" universe they do, and the graphic novel makes Edward Cullen's sparkle-reveal to Bella Swan all the more melodramatic and crucial by making it one of the few pages in the book featuring color art.
When I read the original "Twilight" series (yeah, shut up), one of my biggest critiques beyond the creepy co-dependent relationship of Edward and Bella was that the books weren't "literary" enough. They seemed as if they were just screenplays in novel form. Obviously, Hollywood noticed this as well.
This is volume one of the series, and it features the first half of the first book. You meet most of the major characters -- the vampire Cullens, the werewolf Blacks, the human high schoolers -- but you still don't truly know who is threatening Bella's life as mentioned in the prologue.
But when you put some of Meyer's basic, bare-bones writing with Young Kim's illustrations, it actually seems to work. Portraits of dreary and rainy Forks, Wash., work much better than Meyer's plodding descriptions in original-recipe "Twilight." The characters still have a generic, blank-slate quality (Bella looks like every long-haired nymph of a high school girl who was "good at art" and drew on her book covers), but seeing them in illustrated form makes them a little more "real."
Still, if you hate all things "Twilight," you're not going to have a change of heart because the medium for the story has changed, and if you're a Twihard, you've already purchased the book and probably have read it multiple times.
And for me, it's a little weird for this version to be released after the movies -- not from an financial standpoint, as it clearly it makes sense for the franchise (cha-ching!) -- but from an aesthetic one. I found myself comparing animé versions of the characters to their film counterparts, which gets all mentally dyslexic. But I still prefer the animé Bella to Kristen Stewart's rendition.
More "Twilight" on Lemondrop
+ Love "Twilight"? Buy a Pattinson Pillow
+ The Popularity of "New Moon" Fuels Pale Makeup Sales
+ More Reasons Kristen Stewart Sucks, Provided by Our Brilliant Readers
+ 15 Literary Characters We'd Totally Sleep With
And 10 More Graphic Novels You Just Might Love.
Heather Muse is Lemondrop's contributing editor. She really can't get behind the idea that vampires sparkle.












Comments:
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Tuesday 23 March
By me
I totally agree! I'm not going to buy it, but I love manga and other comics, and after I saw it at Borders I thought that it'd probably make for a better graphic novel than a book (maybe even a movie...I haven't seen them though, so I really wouldn't know - to be honest I only read half of the first book and flipped through the rest), since there's so much dialogue and the descriptions are more manga-like anyway (like how they're repetitive). I'm going back today to 'read' it. :D
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Thursday 01 April
By Janice
I saw Twilight and my instinct was that this whole ides of a fuzzy guy in the sunlight and a controleed vampire out of the sun is more like amurder mystery, not a forbidden love. Imagine that for the foundation of a relationship-ohoh-sun's coming. That is crazy. What anidiotic idea. Not an alchoholic, but a blood drinker. Anyway, bodies exploded with ethe blood left in them and were freaky when dug up. There are no vampires, and no,Mary Magdaline, there are no spacemen. Just people having fun with impressionable imaginations.
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Tuesday 06 April
By Allie
Twilight is a good book but the ''graphic novel'' thing makes me think of barbie books. Also what started the whole team jacob or team edward thing? Imean COME ON!!!! THEY R NOT REAL!!!! ( I HATE BARBIE!!!) My sister had a barbie cake and my favorite par was to rip her head off!!
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Tuesday 06 April
By tjenny19
Wow someone has a stick up their ass. You know what I've noticed about a lot of Twilight fangirls? They're all incredibly, rude ,crass, and not very bright as a whole. Seriously. Do you know how much men hate idiotic dribbling rude women like you? Chances are you probably don't have a boyfriend let alone ever have one. Before you insult others and passionately prove how much of a mass following sheep you are. I want you to take ONE THING about your precious Edward into account.
Edward is a vampire = Edward is an UNDEAD = Edward has no working biological functions = Edward being an undead means he doesn't have a beating heart or any flowing blood = It's impossible for Edward to have sex because an UNDEAD creature with no blood cannot get an erection = You and many Twitards are into Necrophilia A.K.A loving and having sex with a dead body = vampires are dead creatures = ALL Twitards are into Necrophilia and are in love with a fictional character who can't even have sex because if he doesn't have flowing blood how would he ever get an erection? That and even if he could somehow defy the laws of physics and biology, being an undead, his SPERM is also DEAD which means he can't impregnate Bella and seeing as how he's always described as being as cold as an ice cube. That would mean his PENIS is ALSO cold as ice. That seems fun. Man Twitards are SO AWESOME. They're in love with a fictional character that can't reproduce, or have sex, doesn't possess regular bodily functions, and has an Icicle penis.
Twitards, their ilk and Edward in a nutshell :D
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Friday 28 May
By lexi
the premise of the story is not to be truthful
the idea is to be a fantastic parallel world
and i'm sure i'm brighter than you ;]
kaythanks
Tuesday 06 April
By Chocoborain
Wow someone has a stick up their ass. You know what I've noticed about a lot of Twilight fangirls? They're all incredibly, rude ,crass, and not very bright as a whole. Seriously. Do you know how much men hate idiotic dribbling rude women like you? Chances are you probably don't have a boyfriend let alone ever have one. Before you insult others and passionately prove how much of a mass following sheep you are. I want you to take ONE THING about your precious Edward into account.
Edward is a vampire = Edward is an UNDEAD = Edward has no working biological functions = Edward being an undead means he doesn't have a beating heart or any flowing blood = It's impossible for Edward to have sex because an UNDEAD creature with no blood cannot get an erection = You and many Twitards are into Necrophilia A.K.A loving and having sex with a dead body = vampires are dead creatures = ALL Twitards are into Necrophilia and are in love with a fictional character who can't even have sex because if he doesn't have flowing blood how would he ever get an erection? That and even if he could somehow defy the laws of physics and biology, being an undead, his SPERM is also DEAD which means he can't impregnate Bella and seeing as how he's always described as being as cold as an ice cube. That would mean his PENIS is ALSO cold as ice. That seems fun. Man Twitards are SO AWESOME. They're in love with a fictional character that can't reproduce, or have sex, doesn't possess regular bodily functions, and has an Icicle penis.
Twitards, their ilk and Edward in a nutshell :D
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Monday 12 April
By anita
did it occour to you that most twilight fans are rude crass and innanley silly becujse these are TWEEN GIRLS? HELLO GET A CLUE
Saturday 22 May
By IridescentDove
Wow. Not that I hadn't thought of those things myself, but if you want to call someone crass and rude in a derogatory way, you probably should not prove to be so yourself. Just sayin'.
Tuesday 06 April
By Rina
"Shut the fuck up, Heather Muse. You have no right to diss something that so many people like. Why dont you go take one of those graphic novels you so like to insult and shove it up your gaping ass? Stupid skank."
I think the only one that needs to STFU is this whiny brat Ana over here. Is Heather Muse not allowed to have an honest opinion on something? People like this really piss me off. This is why I have no respect for most Twilight fans, some of them can't respect other people's beliefs and react like violent dumbasses back.
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Friday 09 April
By KPZomB
...technically this would be considered a manhwa because it was done by a Korean artist and doesn't necessarily follow the art style of a manga.
As for me liking it... yucky... seriously... it could have been done with less "smoothing" effects and be less photoshop-y and more like a classically drawn graphic novel. I think it would have looked better that way.
As for the Twilight series by Meyer... eeew.... I read them because others were reading them and all I can say is that she should have spent more time honing her writing skills. The idea is great and original, it is just that the execution sucks and the characters are a little too sappy for my tastes.
If you want a good vampire manga/graphic novel just read Vampire Knight... there are others that are a lot more intense too...
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Monday 12 April
By anita
we ll i just read the twilight books and i have to admit it was not a bad story i admit that all the giggly tweeney hype kinda turned me off as i said its not a bad story i will say though vampire bill from hbo's true blood would sooooo kick edward cullins butt lol but my point AND I DO HAVE ONE is that i am all for anything that gets a kid to actually READ is a good thing wheather its the twilight books or the sookie stackhouse chronicles (books that true blood is based on) or comic books or harry potter ( yes i LOVE harry potter too) and my husband wins the no prize for the sparkling skin thing its the top layer of his skin burning off from the sun people take thse books WAY TOO SERIOUSLY they are JUST BOOKS its JUST A FICTIIONAL STORY and WHO THE HELL CARES so long as kids are reading? next people are going to burn these books to save us from THE EVER SO SCARY VAMPIRES its rediculus already
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Monday 12 April
By Powell
You are so correct. I do not understand why people see the need to beat up each other over books that young people read and have trouble running off to watch tv until they are finished --hard to put down. We want them to read. Reading generates brain ac tivity. there is enough complexity in the TWILiGht series to actually cause people to have to think and draw parallels and comparisons and to argue with characters. The books are also character driven, much like the works by Shakespeare as well as we have royalty in the Volturi.
Monday 12 April
By Powell
Come on guys. 1)as for the literary quality of Stephanie's writing, keep in mind the fact of point of view. She stayed in the point of view of Bella during most of TWILIGHT. That point of view was that of a seventeen year old girl, hardly a forest of great metaphors and conceits and vocabulary. 2) as for the codependence theme, it kind of came out of Wuthering Heights and Romeo and Juliette, two pieces of writing that seem awfully literary to us now since it was written during a time well before much of the every day slang that we use today. TWILIGHT is just a story. So was the Three Little Pigs. I do not see all this angst about LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD. Meyer is inventive and she reached a core in young girls. One day, they will grow up and outgrow her. There are many old ladies today who use to swoon and wet their pants over the Beetles (or Beatles?), and offer themselves to their rock star heroes. We are making too much of this passing phenomenon. We won't know for a hundred years whether this "literary" effort was useless or not. By the way, I am 69 years old. My favorite writers include James Joyce and William Faulkner and Toni Morrison. I am kind of codependent.
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Friday 16 April
By Lisa H
Thank you, Powell, for an insightful comment. I also wonder why people are making such a big deal over the story being "fake" Of course it's fake--I don't actually believe that anyone who swoons over Edward thinks he's a REAL vampire. C'mon, you have to admit, Robert Pattinson is quite handsome. I'll admit it as well, I read the books this summer (on my honeymoon) and loved them. Why? Because it took me back to my younger years when you lust after someone so much..it's a nice feeling to have again. I did enjoy the books, however the last book, Breaking Dawn, was my least favorite. I never knew who Robert Pattinson was until after I read the books and I have to say--I was a bit smitten--mostly because I loved his character, but now I'm just hooked on Robert for Robert--nothing to do with Twilight. He is filming several other movies at the moment and I hope they will be successful. I'd hate to see him get stuck as "that guy from Twilight" for forever. He's quite talented and I hope others see it as well.
In regards to people liking or not liking the book--it's all a matter of opinion--which everyone is entitled to! Be respectful of others and their viewpoints.