Jim Nightshade is a dark-haired, brooding youngster drawn to the seductive lure of grownup life; blond Will Halloway is content to "go with the flow" and stick with the path set before him. Both steal away into the night one October to observe the carnival as it rolls into town, despite being warned of an impending storm by a lightning salesman they encounter along the way. The carnival's triple-edged dose of pain and suffering, longing and despair, aging and death, bring the combative natures of good and evil into sharp focus in Ron Wimberly's graphical adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, a dark fantasy that examines the emotions of adolescents on the cusp of adulthood.
Wimberly, a Brooklyn comic artist known for his work on Swamp Thing, Deadman and Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm, brings Bradbury's words to life on a black-and-white canvas, communicating the fear and wonderment of the man-child. Although Wimberly's graphical translation leaves visible gaps, his work delivers on the sense of unlimited possibility so essential to Bradbury's original work. Bradbury's stature in the pantheon of fantastic literature remains intact, and those who wish to restore his stories to a new generation need only remember their own sense of childish wonder. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant