By Tom Gauld (Drawn & Quarterly)
ISBN: 978-1-77046-065-2
Everybody knows the story of David and Goliath. Big, mean evil guy at the head of an oppressive army terrorising the Israelites until a little boy chosen by God kills him with a stone from his slingshot.
But surely there’s more to it than that…?
In this supremely understated and gentle retelling we get to see what the petrifying Philistine was actually like and, to be quite frank, history and religion have been more than a little unkind…
Like most really big guys Goliath of Gath is a shy, diffident, self-effacing chap. The hulking man-mountain is an adequate administrator but fifth worst swordsman in the army, which has been camped in opposition to the Hebrew forces for months. Moreover, the dutiful, contemplative colossus doesn’t even have that much in common with the rough-and ready attitudes of his own friends…
When an ambitious captain gets a grand idea he has the towering clerk outfitted in terrifying brass armour and orders him to issue a personal challenge to the Israelites every day.
“Choose a man, let him come to me that we may fight.
If he be able to kill me then we shall be your servants.
But if I kill him then you shall be our servants.â€
The plan is to demoralise the foe with psychological warfare: grind them down until they surrender. There’s no reason to believe that Goliath will ever have to actually fight anybody…
Elegiac and deftly lyrical this clever reinterpretation has literary echoes and overtones as broadly disparate as Raymond Briggs and Oscar Wilde and as it gently moves to its sad and inescapable conclusion the deliciously poignant, simplified line and sepia-toned sturdiness of this lovely hardback add a subtle solidity to the sad story of a monstrous villain who wasn’t at all what he seemed…
Tom Gauld is a Scottish cartoonist whose works have appeared in Time Out and the Guardian. He has illustrated such children’s classics as Ted Hughes’ The Iron Man and his own books include Guardians of the Kingdom, 3 Very Small Comics, Robots, Monsters etc., Hunter and Painter and The Gigantic Robot. You can see more of his work at www.tomgauld.com
© 2012 Tom Gauld. All rights reserved.
This book is scheduled for release in mid-March 2012. For book signing/tour dates please consult our Noticeboard or the author’s own website.