The Book of Ballads
Charles Vess
Tor, Nov 2004, $24.95, 191 pages, ISBN: 076531214X
reviewed by Harriet Klausner

Fantasy and comic book illustrator Charles Vess (see his work on the early Sandman comic books) provides thirteen illustrative stories written by eleven different highly regarded authors that are based on famous ballads. The tales are cleverly conceived as Mr. Vess and a renowned fantasist take a well known verse and turns it into a delightful illustrated story. The original ballad follows the animated tale for those who seek the complete package. The pictures are in black and white, but that brings a historical feel to the retelling of the ballads; thus this enhances the conversion as color would make it prettier, but subtract from the wonderful total affect. A rather different type of anthology, fans of graphic tales will appreciate this marvelous unique collection that contains wonderful interpretations of famous ballads like the Black Fox and Thomas the Rhymer by a who’s who of fantasy.