Customer Reviews
Fantastic read - By: Simon Wells, 21 Nov 2008 
I watched the film before reading the book & I loved it, I thought the entire thing was brilliant & loved V (Hugo Weaving was fantastic) & I was always intending to read the book. A work colleague told me that the book is a lot different from the film (as is usually the case) so not too long ago I brought the book & had finished it two days later.
Alan Moore has written an amazing piece. The entire idea of England becoming one of the only countries that survived a massive war & the political party that took over are fascist & its basically a Big Brother moment where they watching everything you do. Evey unlikein the film is just a sixteen year old girl who doest have enough money to live so she becomes a prostitute. Unlikein the film Evey is a lot less self reliant & is happy to live out her lifein V's shadow gallery but it shows a great deal about her growing up from the scared little girl into what she becomes later.
The book was a great read & didn't disappoint giving you a disturbing outlook to a dark future & I love David Lloyd's little note dedicating the book to people who don't switch off the news & choose not to livein blissful ignorance.
Infinitely preferable to the film - By: Paul Kirby, 19 Aug 2008 
Great. This deserves the hype but not the butchering it received on film at the hands of the Wachowksi brothers. This is really about Thatcher's Britain & nuclear winters & the social control of 'deviant' minorities & the power of dissent. So it has something to say about today. But don't read it as a proxy for political critique. It is a joy for many a reason, of which its anarchist politics is one, but our present predicaments require something less wedded to Cold War models. V for Vendetta is of its time, by which I mean also that it is a classic.
Good work, but totally spoiled... - By: Scottish Wildcat, 14 Aug 2008 
A potentially excellent work of graphic fiction, but totally spoiled by the worst attempt at phonetically transcribing a Scottish accent I've ever read--when you read it out loud it sounds it a bit like Russ Abbott's "See You Jimmy" character. Embarrassing & unnecessary when there are so many great Scottish comic book writers who could have assisted.
The V-effekt of V for Vendetta - By: Mr. RB FORTUNE-WOOD, 27 Jul 2008 Alan Moore & David Lloyd's aesthetic seems almost Brechtian. With a sci-fi motif it distances the reader from the universal political issues being addressed; amusingly, V for Vendetta could be said to use Brecht's V-effekt. There is a strong dialectic that runs throughout, a sense of determinism layered symbolism. All V's Larkhill targets personify aspects of the state. Science is embodied by Delia Surridge, military & media by Lewis Prothero & religion by Anthony Lilliman. Each takes an attitude of opposition; so Lilliman is the unrepentant leader of an institution of salvation, whilst Surridge seeks repentance from the opposed standpoint of a scientist. Prothero, by representing the military become media, isin himself a synthesis between the power of rhetoric & that of violence, which ultimately spawns a new antithesis resultingin V - anarchy personified.
The secret police are represented by Peter Creedy & the figurehead by Adam Susan; Creedy seeks power as an endin itself, whilst Susan is a deranged idealist who believesin his superiority to the extent that he becomes solipsistic, disconnected from humanity & infatuated with the super computer `fate'. With all of this madness Moore knows how to offer grounding & realism; investigator Eric Finch & orphan Evey Hammond take on the roles of the everyman & everywoman respectively. They offer the audience characters to follow, to empathize with. They are a thread of sanity weaved through this excellent narrative.
Moore's story is also full of intertextual allusion; from Shakespeare to Goethe & from Crowley to Fawkes, this is intelligent writing. The dialogue (replete with convincing phonetic spellings, character ticks & vernacular language) flows beautifully & the absence of thought bubbles or sound bubbles lends this book both a maturity & minimalism. Lloyd is given room by this minimalism to show of his artistic capabilities, which are not at all lacking; this is a gritty, dystopic kind of realism that takes you to the action. Each panel demands your attention.
Overall V for Vendetta is faultless; I love the film as well, but the original is on a different level. This is a comic book that shows you how far the medium can be pushed when it is backed by enough raw creative talent.
Wicked - By: H. M. Lawrence, 22 Jun 2008 I love this graphic novel, I read it a long time before I saw the film, & I still think the novel is better! If you have never read a comic/ graphic novel before, I highly recommend this one.
