Review: Stephen King's The Stand: Captain Trips (Graphic Novel) by Roberto Aquirre-Sacasa

The Stand: Captain Trips by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Adaptor), Stephen King (Story)
Mike Perkins (Illustrator), Laura Martin (Illustrator)
Stephen King’s – The Stand Graphic Novel Series, #1
Hardcover, 160 pages
Published January 6th 2010 by Marvel
Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository

It all begins here: the epic apocalyptic battle between good and evil. On a secret army base in the Californian desert, something has gone horribly, terribly wrong. Something will send Charlie Campion, his wife and daughter fleeing in the middle of the night. Unfortunately for the Campion family, and the rest of America, they are unaware that all three of them are carrying a deadly cargo: a virus that will spread from person to person like wildfire, triggering a massive wave of disease and death, prefacing humanity's last stand.

My Review:

I have never read the actual Stand book but I think I am going to have to now. I love Stephen King and I have since I was in probably middle school. The Stand is considered one of Stephen King’s greatest works. It is, however, over 1000 pages. Just a tad bit intimidating. These separate graphic novels are only around 150 pages each and there are 6 parts. That I can handle. Now, because I haven’t read the actual story I can’t comment on whether the characters or surroundings are drawn as described.

Going along those lines, I also don’t know if anything was left out of the book. This story flowed very well though so it doesn’t seem like anything is missing. I saw a review on Goodreads that said this is a loyal adaptation of the book if you were put off my by the large size. I will definitely be reading the original so I can have a comparison.

If you’ve been reading for a while or watch me on YouTube then you probably know that I enjoy post-apocalyptic books. I also like to know what caused it because that is what makes a story believable or not. This story starts at the very beginning and we see the end of the world happen as the characters do. You get to find out what causes the virus to escape and how it ends up spreading so far and fast. I also like that it isn’t a zombie outbreak. Now don’t get me wrong I love a good Zombie story but a lot of people seem to do that. This is definitely a believable story.

We follow quite a few different people that end up surviving the outbreak, at least during this book. Nick Andros, who is deaf and probably my favorite character so far. I also like reading Stu Redman’s sections. Sometimes it gets a little confusing with all the characters but I figured it out pretty quickly.

The artwork in this book is fantastic and where appropriate, rather gory. There are a couple scenes that come to mind specifically that were crazy. If the illustrators drew these so well, I can only imagine what the description in the actual story was. There is also a little bonus at the end of the book. There are artist renderings of different sketchbook type material for cover graphics, comments from the illustrators, and other fun things.

Do I Recommend this Book/Series?

A Stephen King fan must have.

Will I Read the Next Book?

Already did!

My Rating: