Variant Coverage   "Five Alarm: The Baltimore Comic-Con 2006" By Adam White Published: 2006-09-19

I first started listening to audio books when — before my lovely wife and daughter came on the scene — I took myself on solitary road trips, trips designed to give myself a “writer’s” weekend away. The good audio books were really good, and the miles passed quickly, and the bad ones never made it past the first side of the first tape. Although I now live in a world that is easier with a television (I’m actually not sure how one parents in our society without one), I still find the urge to listen to the occasional audio book. Thus I found myself intrigued when I received an email solicitation from Graphic Audio. They had produced a “dramatized audio production” based on the DC’s Infinite Crisis and were offering it up for review here at ComicCritique.Com. My inner geek grinned and rubbed his hands together with nerdish glee. While I often throw such offers out to our excellent contributors, I planned to keep this one to myself.

Part of my attraction to Graphic Audio’s production was that they had employed a full cast of actors to aurally render Infinite Crisis. I was very curious how this would work. Would a narrator’s booming voice intone, "Panel 1, Page 1," and describe the art and characters? Would it be a radio-style drama with special audio effects? After I started listening I realized this was clearly not based on the sequential art version of Infinite Crisis; there was too much narrated prose. Indeed, a quick search at Amazon.com turned up Infinite Crisis: The Novel, written by Greg Cox, and a visit to Graphic Audio’s site eventually turned up the not-easily-found promotional page for Infinite Crisis, which clarified that this audio book was indeed based on Greg Cox’s novel. (Greg Cox has also penned the just-released 52: The Novel, a few Star Trek books, and other pieces that fall directly in the pop-culture realm.)

It took a while — maybe an hour — to get used to experiencing a superhero story in this way. I initially took issue with Cox’s unnecessarily detailed descriptions of iconic characters and locations, and those same descriptions led me to believe he (or his editor) targeted certain passages at too broad an audience. How many non-comic book readers will read or listen to this book? Even so, after that first hour I found myself pleasantly involved in the story, to the point that I was reluctant to interrupt it even when I had to move on to my next task.

Graphic Audio did an excellent job of using all that the medium has to offer. Background music is well-placed, and appropriate effects on the voices (like reverb) place the listener in the room with the outstandingly-voiced characters. Of special note is the wicked speedster Zoom’s appearance. If you’re listening via headphones, you’ll hear Zoom’s voice zip from left ear to right ear and back again as he runs circles around his opponents. I found this very entertaining, and it gave me the sense that Graphic Audio really cared about telling this story in the best way possible. Interestingly, Graphic Audio seems to employ an entire cadre of voice actors who apparently all participate in the company’s various productions, making them as much a theater company as anything else.

If you’re new to audio books, brace yourself for a serious investment in time. While the longest movies (that I’m willing to watch) can weigh in at four hours, be prepared to spend up to twenty hours or more listening to a complete and unabridged audio book, and both parts of Infinite Crisis will take up fourteen hours of your life. Still, many big-city commuters easily spend fourteen hours a week traveling between home and work, and audio books are a nice way to pass the time, whether you’re driving or taking public transportation.

Infinite Crisis has been released in two parts, available separately for purchase and download from www.graphicaudio.net. Graphic Audio knows its customers own twenty-first century electronics and accordingly offer their books in several formats. Although I listened to the “.wma” review copy on my handheld, I’m partial to MP3 CDs (which Graphic Audio does offer), which allow hours and hours of an audiobook to all fit on a single MP3 CD and all play very nicely in most new car CD players. Graphic Audio also has instructions for burning your purchased book to a standard audio CD, which should meet the needs of just about everybody who wants to listen.