Guards! Guards!: The Graphic Novel

Discworld Graphic Novels #3

by Stephen Briggs (Adapted by), Graham Higgins (Illustrator), Terry Pratchett

Some night-time prowler is turning the (mostly) honest citizens of Ankh-Morpork into something resembling small charcoal biscuits. And that's a real problem for Captain Vimes, who must tramp the mean streets of the naked city looking for a seventy-foot-long fire-breathing dragon which, he believes, can help him with his enquiries. But there's more - now we get to see Ankh-Morpork in all its glory; illustrations so vibrant you can practically smell and taste the denizens of this delightful city (although with Corporal Nobbs, you might rather wish you didn't have to). All rendered in painstaking detail by Graham Higgins (who feels he now knows altogether far too much about the murky goings on inside Nobbs' head).

Genres: Fantasy, Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Humor, Comedy, Graphic Novels Comics

122 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Stephen Briggs is a British writer of subsidiary works and merchandise surrounding Terry Pratchett's comic fantasy Discworld. He is also a narrator of many Discworld audiobooks
who graduated from Curtin University with a double major in Theatre Arts and Creative Writing before attending WAPPA and studying Broadcasting. Midway through his time there he decided he didn't want to be a journo and moved to Sydney to join RMK Voice Productions. Stephen has voiced countless campaigns and appeared in numerous professional plays. He has written and directed six short films, one of which, Whatever it Takes, satirises the Voice Over business.

Please note that there is a separate Stephen^^Briggs whose area of expertise is psychotherapy.

Reviews

[[ J o ] · Rating 2 out of 5]

A couple of things before we start.

I have only read four comic books (or graphic novels? I swear I don't know the difference, I am not taking the piss) before and those were sexist and pointless. I am not a comic book person, but I love illustrated editions of books. Same thing, right? Nope.

And secondly, I love Terry Pratchett and will read anything with his name on it, even those terrible sci-fi books he wrote with that other dude.

So, with my pathetic knowledge and experience of comicbookgraphicnovels and my superb knowledge and great experience of Terry Pratchett, let's get started.

Everything that Terry is great at can't really be translated in to pictures. His stories are top notch but they're never excellent, brilliant, superbly thought-out or anything much different to what you get elsewhere. But the way he tells them is one of the most sublime things in the literary world. His words flow like silk over melting butter-or other such things that have little or no friction-and as a nice side-effect of this, the stories develop in a lovely way that has all that stuff we love in a good story, like excellent pace and all the words in the right place.

What you rely on in a comicbookgraphicnovel is the dialogue. PTerry is good at dialogue, but he isn't brilliant. His characters have some wonderful one-liners and his characters' conversations definitely almost always pass the Bechdel Test, so yey. But this particular comicbookgraphicnovel didn't really have much except the wonderful one-liners, and one-liner after one-liner is just annoying. Like a comedian dying on stage who resorts to insulting the hecklers instead of observing.

I did like the drawings. I thought Vimes was pretty spot on but I often found it hard to decide who was who. You have to figure that out for yourself. If I didn't know who Vimes was I probably still wouldn't know who he was having finished this. I definitely wouldn't like him (read: be madly in love with him and imagine him slightly younger and better looking in my head) after reading him in this. We get his thoughts but we just don't get his proper thoughts. Am I making any sense? I don't think I am.

I just don't really get it. Really.

[Juho Pohjalainen · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favourite of the Discworld comic adaptations. It's the art that does it - the proper kind of cartoony style that fits the story and the setting and makes each character distinctive and memorable. Kind of melty, though, occasionally shifts the faces about in uncomfortable ways.

[Raghav Bhatia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Pratchett's City Watch subseries, which starts with "Guards! Guards!" It's a very funny, very clever, very DELICIOUS book.

Does this graphic novel hold up to it?

I'd say, for the most part, yes. Insofar as an adaptation can.

Places and characters look how they're described in the book. The dialogue is taken verbatim. Even a few passages. Every key moment is present. The soul is there.

But.

The great strength of Sir Terry Pratchett's works lies in the way he weaves a story. The way his prose sweeps you along, makes you feel like a kid following a paperboat. The way his plot unwounds as though it ha(s/d) a will of its own.

I don't think that can be captured in any other form of media. What Pratchett does is unique to him.

Besides, being already familiar with the plot and setting, I didn't feel any of that giddy wonder bubbling inside of me as I was reading this. Perhaps an unfair criticism, but a criticism nonetheless.

[Sublimacia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Začnem priznaním : MILUJEM PRATCHETTA!!!! Keby sa podpísal pod telefónny zoznam, tak si síce poviem, že to nie je jeho najlepší počin, ale dočítam ho v očakávaní až do konca.
Stráže! Stráže! sú jedným z mojich najoblúbenejších Zeměplošských príbehov (Snáď sa pán Gális neurazí, ale Kantúrek bol proste prekladatelský Boh!), preto akýkoľvek návrat do tohoto príbehu mi zlepší deň. Kresba mohla byť lepšia, vynechali veľa humorných scén a celkovo to je oproti knihe slabé, ale oproti originálu sú slabe aj dve tri police iných kníh ktoré by som doma našiel, takže mi to nevadilo. Elánius a Karotka a Errol a všetci .... proste spomienky dokreslili všetko, čo sa do zošita nevošlo. Spokojný som :)

PS: Pokiaľ si niekto z vás nemyslí, že Pratchett je jeden z najlepších spisovateľov, je to samozrejme váš názor, ale je to špatný názor a pokiaľ ste v bratislavských končinách pozývam vás na kávu, aby som sa vám mohol za ten zlý vkus vysmiat :P

[Neville Ridley-smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was very disappointing in many ways. I remember reading the book about 15 years ago and thoroughly enjoying it - Pratchett was really starting to hit his stride. This adaptation conveys little of the humour.

Pratchett's humour is very much based on his turn of phrase, his descriptions and his timing. These are always going to be hard to translate into other mediums.

But it's not just that. As a plain comic it fails. The art is average. Worse than that, the panels often don't make sense. I imagine that for anyone who hasn't read the book, they could get rather confused about what the heck is going on in some parts.

So, is there anything good? Well, there are one or two sparks of cleverness - where something has been translated across well into picture format and some of the clever lines from the book come across - for example, the patrician's lines.

Not bad enough to warrant a 1 star but only for die-hard fans.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guards Guards would be amongst my favourite books and one I have read on numerous occasions. I love the City Watch created by Terry Pratchett and on top of that this book has one of those wonderful realistic romance stories mixed in with Sam Vimes and Sybil which I just love. Added to the mix the twists on fantasy tropes and brilliant wit and its just a great book.
Does it work as a Graphic novel ?, well yes yes it does. Artwork is great. Nobby is particularly well captured as is Vetinari. Not sure on the rendition of Carrot but overall the art is done very well and its completely loyal to the story and still carries the Pratchett wit and charm across.

[Zedsdead · Rating 2 out of 5]

Graphic novel adaptation of the Pratchett classic.

I did enjoy this for the warm fuzzies it gave me revisiting Ankh-Morpork, Captain Vimes, Carrot and little Errol. But it reads like what it is: a compressed version of the novel. And a poorly adapted one at that: missing words, panels and word balloons out of order, clumsy and incomplete scene choices. Some character art designs are good (Vimes in particular), others are so stretched out that their heads don't look like heads (Nobby, Wonse, all of the dragons).

It doesn't make me want to start collecting the graphic Discworld adaptations, it just makes me want to re-read the Pratchett series.

[Sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

B.R.A.CE. 2017 ένα graphic novel ή κόμικ

Αγαπημένος Terry και αγαπημένος Vimes σε comic!
Γίνεται ένας τέτοιος συνδυασμός να μην είναι εκπληκτικός;;

[BurritoChris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the art style, it's very in keeping with the Josh Kirby and even the style of those animated films. I like that Discworld art pre-Kidby straight-up refuses to be clean in favour of being a bit odd. The art here is even reminiscent of Viz and the Beano at times.

I think what lets it down is the fact that Discworld books are so good. Pratchett's footnotes and description never feels out of place in a novel, but they are sometimes inserted here in an all-white panel that unfortunately are some of the funniest pieces of writing.

Backgrounds in some scenes can also be disappointing. You'll often see characters talking in front of a background of one solid colour. It's like Briggs thought that environmental details didn't matter, or worse, simply couldn't be bothered to redraw background details we've already seen. I'm just stealing opinions from Hbomberguy's The Killing Joke video, but once it's been pointed out to you that backgrounds like that are lazy, you never unsee it.

Overall it's fine. Just re-read the novel.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mir hat die Graphic Novel gut gefallen. Aber das liegt wohl auch daran, dass ich den Roman kenne. Jemand der "Wachen! Wachen!" nicht gelesen hat, könnte Substanz fehlen. Aber ich denke, dass das ein generelles Problem bei Graphic Novels ist, die auf Romanen basieren. Trotz allem sehr nett.

[LandmineCat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't particularly like the art style and character design here. It was still reasonably fun, but probably more out of reminding me of the enjoyment of the novel rather than on the merit of this adaptation itself.

[itchy · Rating 4 out of 5]

31%:
le mot juste:
Nobby says it is a flea-bitten moron because it won 18 pence of him in a game of cripple Mr Onion.

It's fairly close to the source material as far as I can tell.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

The artwork is nice, but if you've read the original novel you know a lot of what makes the book great is being in Samuel Vimes head. This makes it very hard to adapt any discworld book to a format other than a book.

[Corey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great short and sweet version. Obviously its not the book but still very enjoyable and great illustrations.

[R · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape – the great face pressed even closer, so that Wonse was staring into the pitiless depths of his eyes – we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality."

This book is a delightful graphic novel adaptation of one of the finest (if not the best) Discworld books - GUARDS! GUARDS! Beginning of arguably the best story arc in the series, the original book is one of the finest satires, targeting stereotypes and clichés of real world as well as legends and lore.

The art dexterously brings a reader's image of Ankh Morpork and its dwellers to life with easily acceptable accuracy. There are grammatical mistakes here and there which make one question the quality of editing, but not annoying enough to dampen the overall experience. All in all, Briggs and Higgins have done a tremendous job visualizing a book which has tremendous fan following and a very special place among STP enthusiasts.

It was such a pleasure to visually meet Vimes, Librarian, Colon, Carrot...and especially Nobby. Oh yeah, and Dibbler too. The faces behind the voices were so near to how they appeared in my imagination. I had imagined Patrician and Lady Ramkin a bit differently though.

On a scale of humor, it lacks the depth of philosophy and STP-grade humor, which the original book immensely benefits from. But, read it like any other comic and it holds its own and doesn't fail to delight. In fact, I could hardly put it down.

The quality of pages, print, cover and art overall is pretty good, rendering a quality and sure shelf-worthiness to the production. A MUST HAVE for STP fans.

[Abhishek Dafria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have not read enough of Terry Pratchett's books (totally my fault!) to claim to know his style of writing. But even the few that I have read have given me the picture of a man who is witty beyond words, smarter than most of his fellow humans, and a terrific writer who can pen the weirdest of his thoughts with clarity on paper. A graphic novel may not do enough justice to the writings of Pratchett, but Stephen Briggs seems to have adapted Guards! Guards! quite well. I say that because in this book I could find the mix of wit and cynicism that I discovered in Pratchett's other novels, as our hero struggles against some evil sorcery. Guards! Guards! is part of Pratchett's Discworld series and has magic potions, flying dragons, a librarian-turned-orangutan, a human with dwarf parents, and other stuff like that. It also has courage, valour, humour, bits of friendship, and also a bit of love, to make you still believe somewhat in humanity. It's a splendid story which has been depicted very well in the form of a graphic novel, the right sort of book to read if it's a strange adventure that you seek...

[Nadya Booyse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love Terry Pratchett. Love graphic novels. BUT this particular one was not great. Too much was cut, but it couldn’t have been longer either; drawings were a bit of a muddle and - in my limited experience - didn’t really speak as much as is required.

For me this is a collectors item though. I didn’t need this to be great, but I did want it to be better than it was.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apparently 8 yrs is long enough for me to have forgotten that not only did I read this book, but I own it, too. It stays fantastically true to the novel & any Pratchett fan should pick it up to read it. I loved the illustrations & Briggs did a wonderful job bringing Pratchett's humor to this medium.

[Tasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as good as I was hoping it would. The Pratchett humour is missing, some of the panels in places seem to be in the wrong order or they are in the right order and make no sense, the artwork is OK although the representation of the characters don't seem to match the book, some panels I couldn't make out what was going on. Overall disappointing

[Julien V · Rating 4 out of 5]

The adaptation and transfer on a different medium was a little awkward, but this is still one of Terry Pratchett's best works, so how could you not enjoy it? Although you might want to read the original novel instead... This version is for hardcore fans.

[Britain · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate that they tried to keep substantial chunks of Pratchett's narration, despite the graphic format. And the art was fun. But there were definite production issues--some panels seem to have been printed out of order? Made for a very halting reading experience, kept getting disoriented.

[CaptainAdwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason this doesn't have a 5 star rating is that I didn't really vibe with the art style. It has a tendency to oscillate between gritty, realistic, American-esque comic style and cartoonish, which probably fits the aesthetic mood of Discworld quite well, but also meant that in the same panel who characters who look to be in different genres butt noses and fight.

Don't get me wrong, the art is good but... the aesthetic dissonance got me!!!

Art gripes aside, I think this translated the original novel in to a graphic format beautifully. The characters felt lively (though, in gritty American-esque aesthetic, not always entirely distinguishable at a glance...), the story beats all hit well, it was just overall a really fun read.

[Simone S · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was interesting to revisit the amazing Guards! Guards! with this different medium that is, a graphic novel.

I don't think that Terry Pratchett's humour translates well to the different format, though. Basically, the graphic novel is the story of the book stripped down of 95% of the humourous things, which is not great.

Also, in some cases I found the drawings a bit confused/confusing. Still, it's a good way to continue reading "new" Discworld material if you've read already the 41 books of the saga.

[Mark Nevitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoy reading this Graphic novel adaption, as a fan that belongs to anything PRATCHETT, I give it high praise. This is based on the novel Guards! Guards! hence the title adapted into a stage play by Stephen Briggs. " Captain Vimes and his forgotten police force- an overweight and cowardly sergeant, a corporal who just about qualifies as human, and the Discworld's tallest dwarf..." oh and" a seventy foot long fire breathing dragon"

[Ümit Mutlu · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Discworld. I love Guards! Guards!. And I love graphic novels.

But this is a really, really bad book. It is not funny at all, drawing is bad, there is not any creative scene... I think it's a shame for DW.

Anyway, please read Guards! Guards! instead of this. That is something.

[Joseph Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hilarious world where people know they're in a story, afraid of attacking a single bold unarmed man for fear he might be the hero, or try to make a crossbow shot even more impossible so that they might actually make it.

This follows a set of guards as they investigate the reemergence of a grand dragon, and then the aftermath once that dragon takes over their world.

[Gavin Wask · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favourite Terry Pratchett characters as a Graphic Novel, what's not to like!

Not much to be honest, it brings the Guards to life in a much better way than the forthcoming BBC America adaptation seems to be doing! Obviously the story is trimmed but the humour and characterisations are still there. Not as great as the book but still a very good version.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read the written novel by Terry Pratchett but I adore graphic novels and decided to see if the characters in my head matched how they were drawn.
Their close and the story flows smoothly in graphic form too.
I’ll be buying more Discworld graphic novels in the future too good to miss!

[Cristina Muresan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm.

Not sure I can be overly excited about this one. It's quite cute, and a bit of a different take on Terry Pratchett's work but I think I'll stick to the novels in the future. It's amusing in parts, and does convey the personality of the characters nicely but - something is missing.

[Enchanted]

I'm not rating this book as i never finished it, i get over halfway through before giving up on it mostly due to it seeming to be to slow, it did have its funny moments but i just couldn't finish it.