Fantasy Dreamer's Ramblings

Front cover: Dan Dos Santos

Mercy Thompson: Homecoming by Patricia Briggs and David Lawrence, Illustrated by Francis Tsai and Amelia Woo
Graphic Novel
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Year: 2009
Pages: 112

My Ramblings:
I need to say upfront that I'm not a comic book connoisseur, so this review is strictly based on my thoughts as a Mercy Thompson fan.

Mercy Thompson: Homecoming is a compilation of the four comic book issues that give you four short stories on the beginnings of Mercy Thompson's life in Tri-Cities, a prequel to the Mercy Thompson series in comic book form. If you have already read the Mercy Thompson series, than you're in for a treat because throughout the graphic novel you get to see how Mercy met many of main characters. I enjoyed these first meetings between the characters.

I really liked the artwork. I loved getting a visual to a lot of the characters in the Mercy Thompson series, and comparing them to what I thought they looked liked in my imagination. You'll get to see Mercy (of course!), Zee, Tad as a boy, Stephan, Adam and several other characters. For the most part, I feel the artists were able to capture the characters as I pictured them, and even added a little to the visuals I already had.

I think Francis Tsai made Mercy look a lot sexier in the comics than what I was picturing, he was the illustrator for the first two comic books and all of the comic book covers. Amelia Woo illustrated the last two comic books, I prefer her rendition of Mercy much better. But I liked Tsai's portrayal of Adam better than Amelia's.

There is a bit a nudity in this, that I thought was done tastefully. It's in the scenes where the Mercy and the werewolves are shifting their forms. Since shapeshifting is a big part of who the characters are, the comics would've been remiss without them.

The dialogue is snappy and witty. I think it fell in line with characters as they are portrayed in the books in concise form, and had held the spirit of the books.

At the end of the graphic novel there is a short interview with Patricia Briggs by David Lawrence, that is very insightful on how they collaborated together and with other team members to pull together the comics for Homecoming. Patricia Briggs also plans on adapting the other books in the Mercy Thompson series to comics in the future.

I think this graphic novel is added plus to any Mercy Thompson collection and fans of Mercy Thompson will get a lot of enjoyment out of this graphic novel, especially those who are a fan of the graphic arts. It's money well spent!

Comic book covers by Francis Tsai

Comic Issue #1	Comic Issue #2	Comic Issue #3	Comic Issue #4

Mercy Thompson is a walker, a magical being with the power to transform into a coyote. She lives on the fine line dividing the everyday world from a darker dimension, observing the supernatural community while standing apart.

When Mercy travels to the Tri-Cities of Washington for a job interview, she quickly finds herself smack-dab in the middle of a gang war between rival packs of werewolves. And as if fangs and fur weren’t bad enough, Mercy must deal with the scariest creature of all: her mother, who is convinced that Mercy is making a mess of her life and determined to set her daughter on the right course

Patricia Briggs's Web site | Francis Tsai's Web site | Information on Amelia Woo

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2. Blood Bound - My Review
3. Iron Kissed - My Review
4. Bone Crossed - My Review
5. Silver Borne - Feb. 2010

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