I've always had trouble with Marlon Brando's performance in Apocalypse Now; his Kurtz is far from Conrad's bed ridden, emaciated ivory dealer. This depiction offers a more than fitting visual interpretation of Kurtz, with his universe-encompassing stare depicted in a manner that live action will never manage.

This is a hyper-reality that the illustrator Catherine Anyango capitalizes on, the paradox that sometimes illustration is the best way to depict real life. The literal animation of inanimate objects is rendered beautifully, the "carcass" of an old steam engine being a perfect example. The frequent depiction of events from a bird's eye view give a sense of two-dimensional progression along a map and the landscapes seen from this perspective often take on the appearance of some great animal's skin. The pareidolia found in the original work is also a strong feature of the graphic novel, so strong as to reverse itself at times: faces found in scenery turn into scenery found in faces.

The entire novel is drawn in black and white, though a sort of sepia black and white, not the boldness of Persepolis. The illustration is done in pencil, though often crossing into inky territory, where bold smudges are reminiscent of cartographical inkblots or violent blood splatter. Intense charcoal portraiture and sketch is used alongside this; the former being one of the novels most effective illustrative skills. It shouldn't escape our attention that the narrator, Marlowe, is given Conrad's own countenance.

In written style the graphic novel is just as brief as the book. In place of broad dialogues, individual lines are singled out and placed on a pedestal of dramatic image. Undoubtedly a vast part of Heart of Darkness' literary beauty is forgone, but this is inevitable in such a densely poetic novel and can be forgiven. The lines that have been chosen remain powerful, particularly alongside highly charged pictures; in this way, Conrad's literary beauty is left intact and in charge.

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