Based on the award winning novel by Cassandra Clare, the Infernal Devices: The Graphic Novel is a great tie-in with the original series. The graphic novel helps the reader visualize what Will, Jem, and Tessa would look like, although it is not a good stand alone graphic novel. It needs the book to help someone know what is going on, and see the important things that had gotten taken out of the book.
Tessa Gray is a young woman who is going to live with her brother in London in the year 1878. Coming from America, and having not seen her brother in a few years, Tessa is abducted by two women who call themselves the Dark Sisters. Being told if she doesn’t do whatever these women say, her brother, Nate, will die, Tessa learns how to change her appearance and of the downworld, a world full of magical creatures who are not entirely human. Told that she will marry the Magister, and be of service to him, Tessa escapes with the help of a young Shadowhunter named Will Herondale. He takes her to the London Institute, where she meets Jem, Charlotte, Henry, Sophie, and Jessamine. Charlotte, who runs the London Institute, opens up a case to help Tessa find her brother, and who the Magister is, as he seems to want to kill all of the Shadowhunters. With the help of Camille Bellacourt, who is a vampire, Tessa and Will break into a party run by de Quincy, another vampire, who is thought to be the Magister.
While Cassandra Clare is a wonderful writer, her work isn’t really meant to be in a graphic novel form like this. Important things are left out that come up in later books, and while you can see what everyone looks like, it is much harder to envision what everything looks like, and how the characters speak if you haven’t read the original novel. This graphic novel is the first in a three part series, and hopefully, it will get better as time goes on, and the graphic artist and Cassandra Clare get used to working together. Overall, something that I would not recommend to most people, and is not high on my reading list when the other graphic novels come out.
