The next chapter in the "Twilight" craze has arrived.

If the original Stephenie Meyer teen vampire novels, movies, DVDs, posters and T-shirts weren't enough, "Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Volume 1" (Yen Press, $19.99) was released to an eager public this week.

The 350,000 first printing is believed to be the biggest for any graphic novel in the U.S. market.

Because of the original "Twilight" novel's length, the graphic novel will be published in two volumes. No date has been announced for the second. Nor is there any word on whether the last three books in the series will be adapted to the format.

The hardcover graphic novel, illustrated and adapted by South Korean artist Young Kim, was created with author Meyer's oversight.

"When it comes to really seeing Stephenie Meyer's personal vision of the 'Twilight' property, this is as close an opportunity there is to accomplishing that," says Yen's Kurt Hassler. "Stephenie was very specific and has very clear images of what the characters look like in her head."

Meyer likes what she sees in Kim's depictions of sexy teen vampire Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, the girl he loves. She writes in the introduction that seeing Kim's drawings "brought me back to my first 'Twilight' experience ... suddenly I would be feeling all the same things I felt that first summer while I was writing (Edward and Bella's) story."

In an e-mail interview, Kim says, "It is always difficult to visualize text, since everyone has a different interpretation of it, but I tried to be as faithful as possible to the descriptions in the book, and Stephenie's review and input were greatly helpful."

Fans and booksellers aren't sure what the response will be to the graphic-novel format or how the book will sell.

Becky Anderson of Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, Ill., wonders how fans will react after seeing the movies and envisioning Robert Pattinson as Edward and Kristen Stewart as Bella.

"People are really possessive of this book and how they feel about it," Anderson says. "It will be interesting to see how they accept this new visual image."

www.TwilightLexicon.com, a popular "Twilight" fan site, conducted an online poll. Among the 4,000 respondents, 30 percent said they would definitely buy the graphic novel, 50 percent said they wanted to see it before deciding, and 20 percent said they weren't interested in graphic novels.

What people really want, says www.TwilightLexicon.com's Laura Byrne-Cristiano, is a new Meyer novel. "The movies are great, but I think we all want a new book by Stephenie Meyer."