About the Author

Rick Riordan, dubbed "storyteller of the gods" by Publishers Weekly, is the author of five #1 New York Times best-selling middle grade series with millions of copies sold throughout the world: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Heroes of Olympus, and the Trials of Apollo, based on Greek and Roman mythology; the Kane Chronicles, based on Ancient Egyptian mythology; and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, based on Norse mythology. Rick collaborated with illustrator John Rocco on two #1 New York Times best-selling collections of Greek myths for the whole family: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods and Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes. Rick is also the publisher of an imprint at Disney-Hyperion, Rick Riordan Presents, dedicated to finding other authors of highly entertaining fiction based on world cultures and mythologies. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @RickRiordan.

Robert Venditti (www.robertvenditti.com) is the creator and author of The Surrogates and its prequel, The Surrogates: Flesh and Bone. In addition to creating comics, he works at Top Shelf Productions. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Attila Futaki (pencils and inks) has illustrated Sprial (Editions Carabas, June 2008) and the forthcoming The Strange Folks (2010), as well as a number of book covers and interiors. He studied at the International School of Comics in Florence. He lives in Budapest, Hungary.

Jose Villarrubia (coloring) is an Eisner Award-nominated colorist who has worked for every major comic book publisher. Coloring work includes Young X-Men, Crossing Midnight, and Halo Uprising. Additionally, he is an art professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Reviews

Venditti's adaptation of the critically acclaimed first installment of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series faces a daunting challenge: to present a beloved, contemporary, young adult fantasy novel as a 128-page visual narrative. But the team succeeds in spectacular fashion. Venditti (The Surrogates) takes the story of the half-blood Percy-who discovers that he is both the son of a god and the prime suspect in a theft of cosmic implications-and forges an adaptation that does justice not simply to Riordan's story but works perfectly as a graphic novel. The book retains the excellent pacing of the original and gives a face to Riordan's vision of the mythological made modern. Futaki's artwork is exemplary, but what leaves such a lasting impression is Villarrubia's coloring, which reveals both subtlety and spectacle when needed. The graphic novel compression must, of necessity, sacrifice something, namely some of the humor of the original. Ages 10-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.