My Opinion on the Novel

[Amaror]

I long resisted reading the White Sand Graphic Novel as I am not a great fan of Graphic Novels. I have enjoyed a few but I prefer books and have allready read the prose version. 

Now after the Humble Bundle Sale I find myself in possession of the novel nonetheless, so I thought I might as well try it out. And it's worse than I expected. The visuals are just a mess. They look like the artist drew a few pictures than ended up looking cool and then decided to use that art-style for the whole comic. But, apart from a few scenes looking cool, the visuals don't add anything to the scenes. Very often the environment themselves are still descriped in rectangular boxes, because thats the way the book did it. Except that wouldn't be necessary if the visuals were good enough to show that on their own. Visuals in Graphic Novels should do at least as much talking as the words on the page do. If they don't then there's no real point to having them.

1. In the very beginning of the Mastrell's Path it is described how Sand Mastery Works. For example that the sands turns black after use. Except they could have made the visuals less useless and just showed us sand turning black after being used in a Ribbon. But instead Sand Mastery just looks flashy. It doesn't even look anything like Sand. It looks like Kenton is just shooting red light from his hand, while it should look like Sand moving rappidly to form those ribbons. 

2. Sometimes they even contradict each other. The text clearly says, like it should, that the sand creatures can be dissolved with water, yet the visuals show the creature with a giant maw, which spews forth water. What?

3. That Khriss entrance. God! You know Khriss, the learned schollar, struggling with the weight of leadership on her first expedition. Makes sense that she would enter the tent like a diva in a fashion-show.

4. "Swords and I don't get along very well", says Aarik, while still holding the Sword during the fight in which he doesn't use the sword. What is this?

I could probably find more but I skimmed through the later half of the book, because the text was pretty much identical to the book I read just recently. 

[Farnsworth]

1) I kind of like the flashiness, but I do agree that it is a bit over the top.

2) Yeah, that was weird. There was also the issue with Slatrification, where Brandon said that plants living on the sand make the investiture, so slatrification doesn't make sense.

3) I will never get over that. She looked like a flashy Egwene.

4) I think he means that he prefers not to use them (that's why he didn't use it in the battle) but he will if he has to (thus holding one)

I agree, it was one of Brandon's less good books.

[Amaror]

13 hours ago, Figberts said:

 4) I think he means that he prefers not to use them (that's why he didn't use it in the battle) but he will if he has to (t

agree, it was one of Brandon's less good books.

I don't think the actual "book" part of it was the problem. The problem was the weird cuts by the gp-writer that mess up some of the context of the scenes and just the fact that you just can't port over a regular novel 1:1 into a graphic novel and expect it to work. They are vastly different mediums and need to be treated as such. But they literally copy nearly all the scenes in the graphic novel word for word from the prose version. And anything that they don't copy 1:1 they make worse. 

The prose novel was actually really enjoyable and was really fun to read. I think there's a direct link floating around were you can get it, but you can also just ask Brandon. I highly recommend you give it a read. 

My Issue with that scene is coupled with the difference with the prose version and the character of Aarik that I know from that version. What follows are spoilers of the far end of the prose version so read at your own risk. I'll just say that he immediatly drops it and fights unarmed in the prose version for good reason.

Spoiler

Actually using a Sword breaks Aarik at a fundamental level and changes his character for the rest of the book. The sword is not the only reason for this but it's certainly part of it.

 

Edited July 20, 2017 by Amaror

[Fatling]

Yeah, I'm coming to feel like this graphic novel was kind of akin to like a movie adaption of a book, which are usually mediocre at best. There's a great deal of detail, mainly about what's going on in the characters' minds, that I didn't catch until I read the prose. In fact, if you had asked me, I wouldn't have even been able to really summarize the plot after the first time I read the graphic novel.

On the other hand I want to give the artists some credit, as they clearly made a valiant effort to do justice to the coolness of Brandon's world. I actually kind of liked the way sand mastery looked in the graphic novel. Also, I try to approach graphic novels with a grain of salt, because I haven't really read that many. Maybe someone who is more familiar with the medium would appreciate White Sand more than me.

I do feel that a graphic novel would have turned out better if Brandon had written it with the intention of it becoming a graphic novel to begin with. To go back to the movie analogy, take J. K. Rowling. She wrote Harry Potter as books (which were generally well liked) and the movies were (in my humble opinion) not that great. Then she wrote Fantastic Beasts with the intention of it being a movie and I liked it a lot more than I did the Harry Potter movies. So if Brandon had written this, knowing it would be a graphic novel, it might have been recieved better. But he wrote it as a book and then some artists tried to turn it into a graphic novel. Like, the minds of artists and the minds of writers work differently, just like the minds of movie directors are different from the minds of writers (and artists). Some things that are really intense in books look real lame in a movie, and some things that look really neat in a movie are super cheesy in a book. So I guess it's the same with graphic novels.

[RShara]

On 7/6/2017 at 10:38 AM, Amaror said:

I long resisted reading the White Sand Graphic Novel as I am not a great fan of Graphic Novels. I have enjoyed a few but I prefer books and have allready read the prose version. 

Now after the Humble Bundle Sale I find myself in possession of the novel nonetheless, so I thought I might as well try it out. And it's worse than I expected. The visuals are just a mess. They look like the artist drew a few pictures than ended up looking cool and then decided to use that art-style for the whole comic. But, apart from a few scenes looking cool, the visuals don't add anything to the scenes. Very often the environment themselves are still descriped in rectangular boxes, because thats the way the book did it. Except that wouldn't be necessary if the visuals were good enough to show that on their own. Visuals in Graphic Novels should do at least as much talking as the words on the page do. If they don't then there's no real point to having them.

1. In the very beginning of the Mastrell's Path it is described how Sand Mastery Works. For example that the sands turns black after use. Except they could have made the visuals less useless and just showed us sand turning black after being used in a Ribbon. But instead Sand Mastery just looks flashy. It doesn't even look anything like Sand. It looks like Kenton is just shooting red light from his hand, while it should look like Sand moving rappidly to form those ribbons. 

2. Sometimes they even contradict each other. The text clearly says, like it should, that the sand creatures can be dissolved with water, yet the visuals show the creature with a giant maw, which spews forth water. What?

3. That Khriss entrance. God! You know Khriss, the learned schollar, struggling with the weight of leadership on her first expedition. Makes sense that she would enter the tent like a diva in a fashion-show.

4. "Swords and I don't get along very well", says Aarik, while still holding the Sword during the fight in which he doesn't use the sword. What is this?

I could probably find more but I skimmed through the later half of the book, because the text was pretty much identical to the book I read just recently. 

Oh man, I just finished the GN version and this is EXACTLY how I felt about it.  I read the Prose version some time ago and enjoyed it, but the GN was awful.

I swear, in some of the Mastrell scenes, there were more arms and legs than could be accounted for with bodies.  Kenton looks like a pouty boy in most of the scenes, and the people just generally look like scribbles.

That Khriss entrance.  THAT KHRISS ENTRANCE.  This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules?  What is she wearing?  Why does she look like she's out for a day at the beach?  Where is all her character building?  The most knowledgeable person in the Cosmere, reduced to a runway strut.

Ais is a woman?  Why did they need to change Ais to a woman?  A man can't be conflicted about his job, religion, and family?  Or was it because there weren't enough women in WS?  Don't get me wrong, I think women ARE under represented in lots of mediums, but I'm not sure what genderbending Ais does for this novel?

Women acolents?  Ummm I'm pretty sure that Kenton says there are no women sand-masters.

Yeah this was not a good adaptation in any way that I could see.