The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (graphic adaptation) by Denise Mina
Friday, August 14, 2015 at 8:42AM 
Published by Vertigo on July 28, 2015
This is a faithful adaptation of a compelling story -- the story of Lizbeth Salander's conflicts with her father, with the government, and with her past. The graphic novel retains the flavor as well as the plot of Stieg Larsson's novel. A graphic adaptation is necessarily condensed, but the best ones use images to convey much of the story contained in the original narrative (a picture replaces a thousand words). The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest does that intelligently, striking a sensible balance between words and graphics. Traditional dialog balloons tell us what characters are saying but Denise Mina avoids the expository blocks of text that crowd out the art in so many graphic novels.
In fact, the absence of text boxes and the inclusion of panels that have no words at all give the story a cinematic feel. A page might introduce a new scene in a close-up panel, following it with a wide angle panel, giving the impression of having panned back. There's a real sense of flow and movement that contributes to the sense of watching a movie.
This might be a good alternative for readers who want to know why the world went so crazy for the Millennium novels but don't want to take the time to read one. Of course, a graphic adaptation never has all the subtlety or nuance of a full novel, but Stieg Larsson was not big on subtlety, so readers won't necessarily miss much by reading the graphic version. All the essentials are preserved here, including dramatic tension and character development. While Denise Mina's adaptation isn't meant as a Cliff's Notes version of the original, the graphic form might help even help readers who decide to read Larsson's novel by adding clarity to a complex plot.
The art is shadowy and moody. It is a bit inconsistent -- two artists worked on this, which might account for the different renderings of faces in different parts of the book -- but on the whole the art suits the story.
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