Fast, funny, and beautiful, Delilah Dirk is a comforting book to brighten any day. ( )

I give this beautiful graphic novel all the stars. The illustrations are STUNNING. The characters amusing and not your typical comic book hero's. Delilah is an amazing, strong, resourceful troublemaker, and I love her. Also, the raciest her amazing outfit gets is when she shows a little knee, it is a garment meant to do battle gracefully, which is something I spend time being very critical of in other comic art. ( )

A fun adventure story. I'll admit that I'm a little bothered by the imperialistic undertone of the story (I hear it's billed as a female Indiana Jones, which doesn't help at all). Delilah Dirk is a Greek-English woman who has traveled all over the world with her ambassador father. She grew up learning helpful survival skills from many non-western cultures, only to turn around and wreak havoc on many more non-western cultures. And now she's in Turkey, killing soldiers, blowing things up, and generally causing a mess as she picks up a charming new companion, the capable Mr. Selim. The characters are fun, but that doesn't cancel out the tired premise of "irresponsible white hero gallivanting around foreign lands with wild abandon."

All right, I've got that off my chest, so let me reiterate that it's a fun read. The dialogue is snappy and full of character, and it's amusing to see Dirk and Selim's (somewhat) carefully laid plans go awry at every turn. And aside from the sexist, bloodthirsty sultan at the start, many of the characters they encounter throughout the book are equally charming.

The art is beautiful - that's the only way I can put it. Every panel is masterful. There's a noticeable difference in style between the opening and the later chapters - not a change in quality, but it's clear Cliff changed his approach to his characters. It makes me wonder how much time lapsed between those chapters. The back flap indicates that the entire book took five years to create, which is quite a lot of work, indeed!

I'm already on book two (Delilah Dirk and the King's Shilling), which I'm enjoying more than the first. ( )

Beautifully drawn, I can just page through it again to just appreciate the art and flavour of the area in which the story takes place. ( )

If this was Delilah Dirk's tale and not yet another "generic dude meets awesome female and is swept along"... I would give this more than three stars. But well... while Delilah is pretty kick-ass and cool in a lot of ways and the two characters' relationship is certainly amusing, the art is very beautiful and the writing is largely good... It's not really my cup of tea. I wish there were more women in the story.

Having said all that, this isn't really another "badass female helps train generic male into The Hero". It's more like the Lieutenant becomes her fanboy>sidekick>comrade than anything else, which is a step forward if nothing else. I don't know how historically accurate this is for the background worldbuilding (not my expertise, although it sounded right in many ways from what I remember) but it was certainly very interesting. ( )