Sherlock Holmes: Year One (Sherlock Homes) Paperback – Illustrated, November 1, 2011

Overall, a nice story with a very plausible first meeting between Holmes and Watson. It was nice to discover a new Holmes mystery with the young detective showing heart and compassion for his college friends. I enjoyed the dialogue between Watson and Sgt. Lestrade. I can easily visualize the BBC actors portraying the characters in this story. The reason for one less star was the author's use of two and three sentence "paragraphs" followed by long spacing between them along with the many two and three page chapters. I found this format to be detracting from the story although others might like the spacing as it makes the text easier on the eyes to read.

I was pleased with this product

A series of murders with a connection to the tales of the Caesars is the lynchpin for this redo of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson. The authors took familiar names from the Canon, from Professor James Moriarty to Irene Adler to Greg Lestrade to Mike Stamford to Victor Trevor, and threw them into a blender on high. The art is stylistic, but somewhat dirty looking in many scenes.I'm not anti-AU in regards to classic stories. I'm just as big a fan of the Jeremy Brett version of Holmes as I am of the Benedict Cumberbatch version, but this may have been just a bit too much blending and less love and respect for the original stories and characters. 3.5 out of 5.

Sherlock Holmes:Year One brings together a series of adventures in which the then young and relatively unknown detective meets Dr John Watson who, in keeping with the original stories, is the narrator of these tales. As a Holmes fan, it looked like something I would really enjoy. Unfortunately, I didn't like it as much as I had hoped.The first story The Butlers Did It pretty much lacked any of the brilliance of the original Sherlock Holmes. The Twelve Caesars, though, which actually makes up most of this graphic novel was quite entertaining and very smart. The problem, however,with using a well-loved character in a book is that fans tend to know this character inside and out and expect him to act in certain ways even in a new and unfamiliar tale. The thing about Sherlock Holmes which made him such a fan favourite is his cerebral musings, his obsession with detail, and his ability to pull the solution out of his...er, out of thin air while others, including the reader can't even figure out what the original problem was.In these stories, there is plenty of action but the cerebral aspect is missing. I know, Sherlock was also a man of action but that was usually secondary - he solved the mystery, then set out to find the proof. In this case, there are two seemingly separate cases and I kept expecting Holmes to bring them together when he gives Watson and the reader that 'ah hah' moment and we (and Watson) wonder why we hadn't seen it ourselves. Instead, it is Holmes who has the 'ah hah' moment when the solution to to one mystery leads him to the solution for the other - an answer so simple and obvious the least discerning reader will have sussed it out for himself.One thing I must add, though, - I really loved the graphics. They made up for any shortcomings I found in the stories. the cover gallery at the end, alone, is worth the price.So my recommendation - if you are a die-hard Sherlock Holmes fan, you might want to give this a pass. However, if you just want a graphic novel with a pretty decent (and smart) story, lots of action, and some gorgeous graphics, you could do a lot worse than this one.

The title really tells it all - change the name of the character to Bruce Wayne and age Robin to a middle aged man and you get the idea of how this is written. None of the original Sherlock Holmes aesthetic remains - this is a straight 'bam' 'kow' action fest where Sherlock Holmes fights his way through crime.And that's the problem - it was the way Holmes was written and the milieu that have made the character so endearing. But putting Holmes into modern sensibilities in a thinly disguised Dark Knight character back in Victorian London just didn't work. It's not a bad novel by any regards. The art is solid and the writing professional. All the same, it lacks the soul of Sherlock Holmes.I'm not a big Holmes fan and have never read any of the Doyle books. But even I could tell that this is anything but a Sherlock Holmes novel. It's a typical super hero fights his way through bad guys novel.