Very meh. There seems to be little value added by the graphic treatment to most of the ballads presented, although the artwork is nice overall. ( )

Lovely and worth rereading. Artistic renditions and retellings of traditional ballads. I recommend this for any fantasy fan. ( )

I have had this graphic novel on my shelf to read forever. I finally got around to reading it; I originally picked this up because I love Charles Vess’s artwork and thought the concept of him illustrating a whole bunch of traditional ballads sounded really awesome. It was a very good read. Some of the ballads were retold in really wonderful ways, others were just excerpts from the original ballads.

This book consists of a series of traditional ballads. The ballads are first told via graphic novel format. Some are retellings and some are pretty much word for word from the original ballads. Then after the graphic retelling, the ballad is printed in its entirety.

A lot of these were just the ballads with pictures without much retelling done by the authors. There were a couple that really stood out though with excellent retellings done by the authors. The Two Corbies by Charles de Lint was a very well done retelling and delivered a fantastic story while still referencing the original ballad. The Black Fox by Emma Bull was also very well done, Bull gave an American twist to this traditional ballad.

Most of the Ballads feature supernatural being like fey or witches. All of the Ballads have fantasy or faerie tale bent to them.

Charles Vess’s artwork is as stunning as always. I was a bit disappointed that everything was in black and white, because I love what Vess does with color. Still the drawings were wonderful and did an excellent job of portraying the mood of the story. His artwork ranges from cartoonish (in the Galtee Farmer), to stunningly beautiful (in Tam-Lin and Savoy), and even to disturbingly ugly (in Alison Cross).

I also really enjoyed reading the poems in their original format. I love epic poetry and folklore and these were fun and interesting to read.

Overall an enjoyable read. I was a bit disappointed that so many of the “retellings” were just excerpts of the original ballads/poems. Still there were some excellent retellings in here as well. Charles Vess’s illustration was absolutely stunning and really set the mood for the stories. Recommended to those who enjoy fantasy graphic novels or are interested in folklore/fantasy poetry. ( )

Summary: The Book of Ballads is not your typical graphic novel - maybe a graphic poetry collection? In any case, there are thirteen entries, each based around a traditional British or Scottish ballad. For each, a different author wrote the text of the story, and the inimitable Charles Vess provided the artwork. The text of the original ballad is included for each, as well. There's also an introduction explaining the sources and history of ballads in general, and a discography providing listings of artists who have recorded versions of each of the ballads in this collection, for those who want the music to go along with the words and pictures.

Review: Some of the stories in this collection worked better than others for me; a fact that's likely to be true for every collection, but which is unique here, because what worked for me was not the writing or the story or the characters, but the degree to which the author reinterpreted the ballad into an actual story. Ballads are almost always little out-of-context chunks of story lacking most of their history and motivation; we don't know what the lady fair was doing riding alone, how the knight came to be keeping consort with a witch, or why the witch was feeling so witchy in the first place. In the better stories in this collection, the authors created a backstory for us, making it a re-telling of the ballad instead of just a telling.

The ones that didn't work so well for me were the tellings. Several of them even made extensive use of the original text of the ballad within the story, without even re-writing them... and at that point, I had to wonder what the point of having an author collaborator even was - surely Vess could have storyboarded them on his own, if that was all that was required? Vess's illustrations are wonderful, full of emotion, hope and fear and love and hate and life and death and horrible dark things and wonderful bright things... all of the things contained in the ballads themselves, basically. They're not quite enough to carry the weaker stories on their own, but they're lovely, and definitely make this book worth seeking out. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Recommended to fans of fantasy, fairy tales, folklore, poetry, and graphic novels.

Also, I highly recommend reading it (or re-reading it) along with some of the music listed in the discography - this is an interesting idea for a book, but it's hard to take the music away from an art form that's inherently musical and still make the same impact. ( )

Charles Vess' The Book of Ballads is a unique collection of Scottish, English and Irish ballads and folktales that have been reimagined into sequential art form with illustrations throughout by Vess and stories rewritten by Neil Gaiman, Charles de Lint, Jane Yolen, Jeff Smith, Emma Bull, Sharyn McCrumb, among other, and with an introduction by Terri Windling. The source ballads and folktales are also presented with each story. It is interesting to see how each author reinterprets the story, either by creating a story that follows the original most faithfully, or taking it and using simply as a guideline to tell his or her own unique story. Vess' illustrations are gorgeous throughout. They really are the main focus of each and every tale. I found myself reading through each tale and then going back and pouring over each page again, simply looking at the art. If you are a fan of either ballads of or Vess' art, you will not be disappointed in this book. ( )