The Road To Perdition, Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner, ISBN 1840235349
I saw the film based on this graphic novel a while ago, and thought it was rather good. So I was quite interested to see the book. It seems that it's (rather loosely) based on real people and events. It's a simpler but bleaker and more direct story than the film, and the paper O'Sullivan a darker figure than his celluloid avatar. The other characters ... well, there's the book's greatest weakness, I think: few of them are really developed as characters at all, usually because they never live more than a few pages.
There's a major difference from the film: it'd be a spoiler to describe it here but if you've seen the film and read the book you'll know what I mean. I think the book has the better end of the deal. There's also plenty of differences of detail which do really make it into a different story with similar characters. But, both are good stories.
I liked the art; the various characters are clearly distinguished and expressive, and Rayner gets a lot out of just black and white.
2003-04-28
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