{"id":18929,"date":"2018-09-03T08:00:51","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T08:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=18929"},"modified":"2018-09-02T11:03:02","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T11:03:02","slug":"the-thief-of-bagdad-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2018\/09\/03\/the-thief-of-bagdad-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Thief of Bagdad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Achmed Abdullah<\/strong>, illustrated by P. Craig Russell <\/strong>(Donning\/Starblaze edition)
\nISBN: 978-0-89865-523-0<\/p>\n

This is a tenuous entry for a graphic novel listing, and potentially a controversial one, but other than all publishers’ motivation to turn a profit, these editions of the late 1980s had a worthy purpose and an admirable intention.<\/p>\n

Donning’s Starblaze Editions began as a way of introducing lost classics to a new audience, by reproducing them with illustrations provided by some of the most respected names in comics. Their other selections were the silent film icon Metropolis<\/strong> by Thea von Harbou and illustrated by Michael Wm. Kaluta; Charles Vess’ illuminated A Midsummer Night’s Dream<\/strong> and most contentiously, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood<\/strong> by Howard Pyle with new artwork by Mike Grell replacing the author’s own groundbreaking illustrations. These are all household names but also tales that very few could admit to have ever actually read.<\/p>\n

The Thief of Bagdad<\/strong> (and that’s how the West spelt it back then) began as a film by Douglas Fairbanks in 1924, with a screenplay by Elton Thomas, accompanied by a short story written by Lotta Woods. The fantastic and exotic tale of a common vagabond who wins a Princess was an eye-popping, swashbuckling blend of magic, adventure and romance which captivated the viewing public, leading to what was probably the World’s first ever novelisation of a movie.<\/p>\n

Achmed Abdullah (1881-1945) was actually Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff, a prolific English author whose father was Russian Orthodox whilst his mother was a Muslim. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he joined the British Army, serving in France, India and China before becoming a jobbing writer of Crime, Adventure and Mystery tales, many apparently based on his own early life.<\/p>\n

He was also a screen-writer, with his most well-known success being the 1935 film Lives of a Bengal Lancer<\/strong> (very loosely based on the novel by Francis Yeats-Brown).<\/p>\n

As a book this is a cracking, literally spellbinding read and the illustrations are Russell at this flamboyant best. There are five vibrant full-colour plates plus an additional ten large black and white line drawings combining the artist’s clean design line with a compositional style that owes much to the works of Aubrey Beardsley.<\/p>\n

Whilst not technically a graphic narrative, this book features all the crucial antecedents of one with the additional virtues of being a hugely entertaining concoction garnished with some of the best art ever produced by one of the industry’s greatest stylists. Believe me, you really want this book and I really want some modern publisher to revive this tome and its companions, even if only in eBook format\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\n\u00c2\u00a9 1987 the Donning Company\/Publishers. Art \u00c2\u00a9 1987 P. Craig Russell. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Achmed Abdullah, illustrated by P. Craig Russell (Donning\/Starblaze edition) ISBN: 978-0-89865-523-0 This is a tenuous entry for a graphic novel listing, and potentially a controversial one, but other than all publishers’ motivation to turn a profit, these editions of the late 1980s had a worthy purpose and an admirable intention. Donning’s Starblaze Editions began … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Thief of Bagdad”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,191,102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adaptations","category-adventure","category-fantasy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-4Vj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}