I'm not sure what made me pick this up from the library. I don't even know what caused me to even look at the graphic novel section at the library in the first place, because I'm not actually a graphic novel sort of person. Unless you count the occasional Asterix album or similar. I enjoyed it enough to pick up the next volumes as well, and it's fairly quick to get through it. You can tell that it's an abridged version of the story because it's a pretty break-neck pace. Admittedly I never actually completely read it in it's original novel form, although it's been on my shelf for many years. I got stuck about two thirds through and that was probably ten years ago. Might try again soon, though, to get the more detail that the non-abridged work offers and also to try and become a little more familiar with the hundreds of characters and who they are in relation to one another, because I suspect that knowledge would have been helpful. I'm having a little trouble remembering who's who and I find sometimes the characters look much the same, depending on how the angle from which they're shown or other stuff going on in the drawing. This is not, I should say, any fault of the artist who drew it. It's simply me not being used to this format and not being used to this style of drawings. It's not really something you can compare with Asterix at all.