The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle cover with illustration by Chris McGrath.

Since the debut of the novel Storm Front in 2000, author Jim Butcher has charmed his readers with his supernatural detective series, The Dresden Files.  Butcher joined Dabel Brothers Publishing to produce a comic adaptation of the novels, the four-issue miniseries, The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle, a prequel to The Dresden Files novels.  Del Rey recently released a hardcover collection of Welcome to the Jungle.

The star of Welcome to the Jungle is, as in all The Dresden Files novels, Harry Dresden; he is a professional wizard who works (apparently for not much money) as a police consultant and private investigator.  In the world of Harry Dresden, the supernatural and all those things that go bump in the night are real, and Dresden plies his trade in Chicago.  When the police can’t handle the monsters and such, they call Harry Dresden.

In Welcome to the Jungle, which is set before the first Dresden novel, Storm Front, Lt. Karrin Murphy of the Chicago Police Departments’ Special Investigation section calls Harry to investigate a brutal mauling at a zoo that has left a security guard dead.  Harry immediately recognizes that this is more than a simple animal attack, and the accused, a prized gorilla, is not the real culprit.  Not long into his investigation, Dresden discovers that his opponent is indeed possessed of supernatural powers, and this mysterious, formidable figure may be more than Dresden can handle.

THE LOWDOWN:  Having never read a Dresden Files novel or saw even one episode of the now-cancelled Sci-Fi Channel TV series adapted from the books, I still knew of the series through a friend who is a devoted (even rabid) fan.  The Dresden Files seems to be fantasy as told in the vernacular or style of hard-boiled detective fiction – the supernatural tale as a mystery story.  Although it blends two genres, Welcome to the Jungle is rather clear-cut.  The good guy gumshoe takes on the bad guy mythological creature – nothing more, nothing less.

In Welcome to the Jungle, Butcher offers straightforward genre storytelling.  Both the detective scenario and supernatural setting are familiar, and the story is written in such a way that readers can recognize the respective trappings of each genre.  Butcher doesn’t seem to have pretensions.  Harry Dresden isn’t Hamlet masquerading as a detective, and the plot isn’t a metaphor for our post-whatever times.  What Welcome to the Jungle says it is, it is – a supernatural detective comic book.

The art isn’t great, but it’s certainly good enough.  The pencil and ink combination is like something from the school of Jim Lee, worked for Vertigo Comics, but like the story, the art is clear-cut and practical.  Penciller Ardian Syaf is drawing to serve the story, as he is more concerned about establishing mood and narrative than style.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  After reading a few pages of Welcome to the Jungle, a reader might declare, “I’ve seen this comic book before.  It’s Hellblazer!”  Thus, fans of the Hellblazer comic book and The Dresden Files novels may like this.

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