The Griff

The Griff: A Graphic Novel by Christopher Moore

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Aliens resembling griffons attack the earth and decimate much of the population. Two groups of people struggle to survive. But why have the Griff come to earth anyway?

The Griff is a graphic novel based on a movie script Christopher Moore worked on with Ian Corson in order to get out of working on one of his other novels. True story. Says so in the introduction. The story is your standard Hollywood apocalyptic disaster movie, only with griffons flying around attacking people.

The two groups of survivors are a mixed bag. You've got Curt, the wannabe soldier, Steve, the skateboard riding slacker, and Mo, video game designer and hot punk chick in one group and Liz, the animal trainer from Ocean World and Oscar, fur-suited theme park worker in the other. Just by the male-female composition of the groups and the fact that this was written to be a movie in mind, you know there's going to be some sexual tension and/or two people hooking up. Crap, I'm getting venomous before I mean to.

Before I vent a bit on reasons why I couldn't rate this higher than I did, I'd like to mention that the art was good and I liked the revelation behind the origins of the Griffs and I also liked a certain bit with Liz at the end that I won't mention because I don't want to spoil it.

And now, here's what I didn't like about it. I love Christopher Moore's novels. Since this was based on a movie script, the only thing that's obviously Moore-written is the dialogue. The problem is that everyone talks almost exactly the same way. 90% of the dialogue is completely interchangeable between characters. It feels like a cliche summer blockbuster in almost every way possible, including the ending.

While it's not a bad graphic novel, don't expect the usual Christopher Moore awesomeness. Picture Independence Day or a similar summer blockbuster, substitute griffins for aliens, throw in Christopher Moore dialogue until it annoys the crap out of you, and you'll have The Griff.



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