I read "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" in English class a few years ago, and it did nothing for me. I understand that short stories centering on teaching a lesson about morality were all the rage back then, but I found it dull. Martin Veyron's graphic novel version of the short story changed all of this. Suddenly, the story was brought to life. The illustrations are able to convey a setting that the original story overlooked. Being able to see the characters added a visual constancy needed to follow the story. The colors are glorious, able to portray the cold Russian winters, and the attractiveness of the land that the main character coveted. Veyron's version of "How Much Land Does a Man Need" gave Tolstoy's story just the modernization it desperately needed.

This graphic novel prevents something of a folk story, and it drew me in much faster than I expected. The story, however, is pretty meandering as it searches for the answer to the titular question - and the answer/ending is a bit of a punchline. I'm torn between thinking it's brilliant and being a bit disappointed at investing so much emotion just to get to said punchline. It was an enjoyable enough read, though, that I don't think I would discourage anyone else from picking it up.

An interesting graphic novel. A good story and some decent artwork. Overall it was not for me though.

I read the original Tolstoy short story on which this is based earlier this year and really liked it. The message here is the same and the second half of the story is very similar. In fact, the latter half of the story here is almost exactly the same as the original short story.

The underlying message delivered on greed and materialistic views never delivering happiness remain powerful and the illustrations are nice enough.

I can't help feeling that the first half of this book wasn't needed and that it might have been better off staying limited to the main part of the story in which a moral is created.

Nice enough, but this doesn't add anything major to the text alone.

How Much Land Does A Man Need is an old Tolstoy short story. My form teacher read it to my class when I was 13 and it has stuck with me.

So when I saw that it had been adapted into graphic novel form, I jumped at the chance. This is beautifully illustrated, creating scenes of pre-Revolution peasant life in Siberia. The man and his wife live a happy but poor life, but are tempted by their upwardly mobile city relations. It takes only minor provocation from the land agent to drive the village to rise up and seize (purchase) the land for the common good. But our hero wants more and more, and is willing to make unwise bargains to attain it.

Needless to say - this is Tolstoy - it doesn't end well.

I don't have too much experience of graphic novels, but this one seems to be faithful to the original story, to convey both the story and the atmosphere, and to seduce the reader with awesome illustration. I don't know how long graphic novels are supposed to take to read, but from memory this was about the same length as the original story. Some pages are dense, others contain just a single scene.

The title is available as both paper copy and eBook copy. I obtained a copying PDF, which gave me colour and zoom ability which I valued. It would be a shame to read this in black and white.

'How Much Land Does A Man Need?' is adapted from a short story by Leo Tolstoy with art and adaptation by Martin Veyron. It is humorous, in an ironic and kind of dark way.

A farmer and his wife live contently on their small farm until a visiting relative talks about how he should have more. Shortly afterwards, the local large landholder gets a new steward who is stricter about how the farmer and his neighbors use the land. This leads the villagers to decide to buy the land they farm on, but then they can't decide what to do with it or even how to divide it fairly among them. This leads the farmer on a journey to discover how much land a man really needs, and how, sometimes, you should really stop while you are ahead.

I read this story a number of years ago, and it's one that has stuck with me. I was pleased to see a graphic novel adaptation of it. I really enjoyed the adaptation and the English translation by Montana Kane. The illustration style is quaint and fits the story perfectly. I had a lot of fun reading this one.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

A wonderful story that is told in an engaging context. The book feels a little too long at certain points but the main theme is evident and worthwhile.

This graphic novel tries to answer the question, "How much land does a man need," by following a poor peasant who through luck, and money and help from friends, gets, what he thinks, is all the land he could ever want. A whole village worth of land.

Here he is standing in his field, thinking that is it. That this is all he needs.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-516" src="http://www.reyes-sinclair.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-05-16-at-11.38.00-PM.png" alt="" />

But, the story doesn't stop there. He gets greedier, and sadder. He wants more land, and more land, and so he goes in search of it.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-502" src="http://www.reyes-sinclair.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Screen-Shot-2018-05-15-at-6.40.54-PM.png" alt="How much land does a man use" />

The pictures, when they are pastural, are lovely. You can tell it is a short story, stretched out. But, the pictures, make up for it.

Nicely drawn, but, we could have chucked half the book, and kept, what appears to be the main content of the short story. Still, this builds up our view of the protagonist, and those around him.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.