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Occasionally I wish to read something a little more substantial than a 24 page comic book. Enter the graphic novel! :) The last one I read is more of a informational reference book on the Marvel character "Ghost Rider." The book is called "Ghost Rider: The Visual Guide." It is written by Andrew Darling and edited by Laura Gilbert with visual designs by Lauren Egan and Jon Hall, though most of the artwork in the book is taken from the original comic book series.
This one honestly took me a long time to get through. It is 125 pages long, and for a book with pictures has an awful lot of words. Normally, I would find this to be refreshing, except for the fact that for many of the words, I needed a magnifying glass! Lots of VERY small type. In addition, the reading is generally pretty dry, as it is simply an informative look at the character, and not really a storyboard format. It felt like a graphically intense history book!
Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the book. For someone like me who hasn't been able to find and/or afford every back issue of Ghost Rider going all the way back to 1972, this book was very informative as to the background of this edgy demonic hero in the Marvel Universe. I've always been a huge fan of Ghost Rider and his look and what he stood for - vengeance - and The Visual Guide does a great job of capturing all the eras of Ghost Rider, from Johnny Blaze to Danny Ketch.
Even though I thought that the writing was very dry and drawn out, I do think that the overall look of this book redeemed it to a halfway decent score in my book. I'm going to score "Ghost Rider: The Visual Guide" at three out of five stars.
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