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HeroesGraphicNovelsHeroes Graphic Novels: #6 Stolen Time Heroes is a new television show on NBC. It's your basic superhero-themed drama, much like Superman and Spiderman. There are ordinary people who find out they have super powers and obviously must eventually get together and save the world. The graphic novels are an extension of the show. Each week NBC advertises a new installment of the novels online. These novels have the same look at feel as regular printed comic books. Each graphic novel is an extension of the corresponding week's episode. In episode 6, the tv show dealt with one of the female heroes that has an evil split personality. She has a blow up with her husband and he ends up taking her son. Apparently, she robbed a bank and framed him for it - such drama. All of this is implied; we never actually see her rob the bank, at least not that I've seen. In the graphic novel, however, we see how she robbed the bank and also how she disposed of her compliances after she killed them, which also tied into an earlier episode with her finding bodies in the desert. She thought that her husband had killed those men, but really her evil self did. Long, confusing story short, the graphic novel helped make connections within the plotline that might not have been obvious. I would say the intended audience of these novels would be comic book people. I'm not a big fan of comic books and I found the Heroes one a little hookie, at least the one that I looked at. However, I did find it informative. I have a lot of questions about the characters on the show, and the graphic novel answered some of these questions. So in that sense, I feel like there might be more appeal. Plus, during the show, at every commercial break, there is an advertisement about these novels, some people are bound to check them out. The idea of producing graphic novels to try and interact with viewers is a unique idea (that I'm aware of). I think it's very genre specific and the show's subject matter lends itself nicely to this idea. Typically superhero shows have originally been comic books that have been turned into a show and/or movie, but in this case both are happening simultaneously. Each can stand alone, but you learn more and maybe become more involved if you view both. The downside, however, is that nbc.com is really slow. If it even successfully loads, it takes forever, at least when I've tried. When I looked through the lastest installment it took a good 20 seconds between each page. Now there is a printable version that you can get, but you still have to download it. I don't know if many people are really going to sit that long and wait for it to load. |