Save a damned fine comic

[yendi]

As noted in muskrat_john's LJ:

Hello, everybody.

I've never sent a mass email asking friends to consider subscribing to a comic book before, but this is a very special case. Eric Shanower's award winning "Age of Bronze" - a 10 year project retelling the story of the Trojan War - needs subscribers to keep the book going.

You've probably heard me praising this work. It's the perfect way to tell this sometimes complex story because this comic illustrates the period costumes and architecture, carefully researched. Unlike the Homer novels some of us have read, Eric leaves out the fantasy elements of the gods and concentrates on people and politics. The gods' only influence is through the people who worship them - and interpret their will.

It's our oldest recorded adventure story retold. Fans of "Lord of the Rings" type stories, especially, will enjoy it.

Here's how to order:
1. There are two collected volumes out in affordable softcover that start from the beginning of the story.
2. The comic itself is bimonthly. You can jump on now and soon be up to speed, if you'd like.
Visit www.age-of-bronze.com

I consider my subscription a worthwhile and fun contribution to the fields of literature and art. It's important to keep history alive for future generations.

Once again, it's available at
www.age-of-bronze.com

Thanks,
Gary Beatty
gary@comicartistsdirect.com

Back to yendi talking here, post-italics. I consider A Thousand Ships (the first volume of Age of Bronze) to be one of the best damned collections I've ever read. The dialogue is great, the story itself is (as you all know) a classic (and interpreting it solely from the mortal POV makes it uniquely engaging), and Shanower's art is amongst the best in the business (I first came across him drawing Oz graphic novels -- that's the Baum world, not the HBO one). I can't recommend this series highly enough. Buy the collections, subscribe to the new issues, and tell your friends. I can't imagine anyone being disappointed in this series. If it goes under, the comics field would lose one of its best books.

Comments

[bobthegoat.livejournal.com]

I checked it out at the library once, and fully intended on purchasing a copy. No time like the present, huh?

I'm going to repost this in my journal.

[yendi]

Excellent! There are few better comics to spread the word about.

[gwynraven.livejournal.com]

Looks very neat. I've added the first two issues to my Amazon wishlist and will buy them as soon as I get paid at the end of the month.

[yendi]

Yay! Let me know what you think!

[catvalente.livejournal.com]

Sigh. Well, you know? I'm a little tired of cutting out the gods and magic as a pomo tactic. Since everyone in Hollywood does it, and no one in this society is comofrtable with presenting the greek pantheon as anything but a Clash of the Titans joke, it would seem to me that the more radical interpretation would be to include them, not to cut them the way everyone else does because it's more "real" that way.

I might have bought this series, but that bit about how awesome it is that the gods aren't in it (they weren't in Troy either) lost me.

[yendi]

It's not that it's awesome that the gods aren't in it -- it's a damned fine tale in its own right, that happens to not have the gods as visible characters. That said, in comics, using the gods is the norm, not the exception. Telling a straight adventure story (especially an historical one) is something all but unheard of (especially for a comic with its genesis in the mid-90s, and triply so for one from Image). Comics have made use of the gods on a regular basic, and while that can be traced to historical camp roots (see anything involving the Silver Age Wonder Woman or Thor), the last decade or so has definitely seen an attempt to use them, even in mainstream books (see Thor, especially).