{"id":28155,"date":"2023-06-14T09:00:26","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T09:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=28155"},"modified":"2023-06-12T16:52:17","modified_gmt":"2023-06-12T16:52:17","slug":"beowulf-first-comics-graphic-novel-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2023\/06\/14\/beowulf-first-comics-graphic-novel-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Beowulf – First Comics Graphic Novel #1"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Jerry Bingham<\/strong>, with Ken Bruzenak<\/strong> (First Comics)
\nISBN: 978-0-915419-00-5 (Album PB)<\/p>\n

The mid-1980s were a great time for comics creators. It was as if an entire new industry had opened up with the proliferation of the Direct Sales market and dedicated specialist retail outlets; new companies were experimenting with format and content, and punters had a bit of spare cash to play with. Moreover, much of the \u201ckid\u2019s stuff\u201d stigma had finally abated and the US was catching up to the rest of the world in acknowledging that sequential narrative might just be an actual art-form\u2026<\/p>\n

Many new companies began competing for the attention and cash of punters who had grown accustomed – or resigned – to getting their four-colour kicks from DC, Marvel Archie and\/or Harvey Comics. European and Japanese styled material had been creeping in but by 1983 a host of young companies such as WaRP Graphics, Pacific, Eclipse, Capital, Now, Comico, Dark Horse, First and many others had established themselves and were making impressive inroads.<\/p>\n

New talent, established stars and fresh ideas all found a thriving forum to try something a little different both in terms of content and format. Chicago based First Comics was an early frontrunner, with Frank Brunner\u2019s Warp<\/strong>, Mike Grell\u2019s Starslayer<\/strong> and Jon Sable, Freelance<\/strong> and Howard Chaykin\u2019s landmark American Flagg!<\/strong>, as well as an impressive line of titles targeting a more sophisticated audience.<\/p>\n

In 1984 they followed Marvel and DC\u2019s lead with a line of impressive, European-styled over-sized graphic albums featuring new and out-of-the-ordinary comics sagas (see Time Beavers<\/strong>, Mazinger<\/strong> and two volumes of Time2<\/sup><\/strong> to see just how bold, broad and innovative the material could be). The premier release was a stunning – subsequently award-winning (1985 Kirby Award for Best Graphic Album) – fantasy epic by Jerry Bingham.<\/p>\n

Beowulf<\/strong> is a thrilling, compulsive and intensely visceral visualisation of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem committed to parchment sometime between the 8th<\/sup> and 11th<\/sup> century AD, and recently the subject of numerous screen iterations and re-interpretations.<\/p>\n

Need a plot summary? Long ago in the far North, noble King Hrothgar<\/em> built a mighty mead-hall for heroes, thereby incurring the malignant enmity of the monster Grendel. <\/em>This beast ruthlessly and relentlessly raided the citadel, slaughtering many noble warriors every night. After a dozen years of horror, a valiant band of heroes led by Beowulf<\/em>, Prince of the Geats<\/em>, came to their aid, seeking glory and fame through battle\u2026<\/p>\n

The clash of Beowulf and Grendel is spectacularly handled as is the succeeding exploit wherein the stalking horror\u2019s demonic mother comes seeking revenge and drags the warrior prince to her hideous lair beneath an icy lake, but the most effective and moving chapter is the very human-scaled Twilight of the Gods<\/em> as, after 50 years ruling his Geatish kingdom, worn and elderly Beowulf goes to his final glorious battle, dying heroically whilst destroying a ravening firedrake which threatens to eradicate his people: the only proper end for a Northman Hero\u2026<\/p>\n

Bingham\u2019s raw, fiercely realistic art-style perfectly captures the implacable sense of doom and by employing Prince Valiant<\/strong>\u2019s text block-&-picture format he endows the tale with a grandeur frequently as mythic as Hal Foster\u2019s strip masterpiece, whilst leaving the art gloriously free of distracting word-balloons.<\/p>\n

Letterer\/calligrapher Ken Bruzenak\u2019s particular facility perfectly enhances the artistic mood by carefully integrating captions filled with Bingham\u2019s free-verse transliterations of the original 3182-lines-long poem into a classic interpretation of the epic. This is a wonderful and worthy piece of work that will delight any fan of the medium. Let\u2019s bring it back pretty please?<\/p>\n

And for a perfect all-ages prose telling of the timeless tale I also heartily recommend Rosemary Sutcliff\u2019s magnificent<\/em> Beowulf:<\/strong> Dragonslayer<\/strong>: first released in 1961 and captivatingly illustrated by Charles Keeping. It is still readily available and one of the books that changed my life.<\/em>
\n\u00a9 1984 First Comics, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jerry Bingham, with Ken Bruzenak (First Comics) ISBN: 978-0-915419-00-5 (Album PB) The mid-1980s were a great time for comics creators. It was as if an entire new industry had opened up with the proliferation of the Direct Sales market and dedicated specialist retail outlets; new companies were experimenting with format and content, and punters … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Beowulf – First Comics Graphic Novel #1”<\/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":[80,191,102,256],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adaptations","category-adventure","category-fantasy","category-sword-sorcery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-7k7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28155","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=28155"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28157,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28155\/revisions\/28157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}