Age of Bronze

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Because I didn't see a thread, and because it is awesome. I'm in the middle of the first trade now.

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 16 January 2006 19:24 (twenty years ago)

It is perhaps the least Image-y book ever, so props to them for putting it out!

I love the goofy throwback art in the Hercules flashback.

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 16 January 2006 19:27 (twenty years ago)

I also get a high-brow thrill out of the fact that the letters in the back of the single that I have are all from classics professors, etc.

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 16 January 2006 19:28 (twenty years ago)

The classics geek within me loves this, particularly how well-researched and interwoven it is in regards to so much of myth. And the little references, like how in one scene a girl is hitting her brother and is chastised to "stop that, Philomela." I haven't gotten the second yet. My one qualm is that I don't really see what anyone finds appealing about Paris.

― Laura H. WHO IS A GIRL (laurah), Monday, 16 January 2006 19:43 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, Paris is a dick.

I took a bunch of Latin and Greek & Roman history in college, but it's all a blur now. I think I would appreciate AoB even more if I took the time to skim some Virgil/Homer/myths etc.

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 16 January 2006 19:48 (twenty years ago)

First trade is awesome; second trade is at least twice as good. I mean, this comic hits so many "this is so cool" buttons I'm ASTONISHED more people aren't reading it.

― Douglas (Douglas), Monday, 16 January 2006 19:53 (twenty years ago)

I could see it being hard to get into from a single issue...if you don't know the source material, there are a ton of names flying around and the characters are hard to tell apart at times.

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 16 January 2006 19:56 (twenty years ago)

funny, I just finished the first trade last night! it was very good although i had some problems... i guess the one thing that sticks out is the big build-up to the very ho-hum helen reveal... that issue just didn't really work for me, despite its ambitions.

but i like most everything else, being a bit of a classics geek myself, this is really up my alley. i like the sorta euro-style drawing, especially:

I love the goofy throwback art in the Hercules flashback.

paris is very NOT likeable... but paris was never meant to be likeable, was he? i always saw him as a brat.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 16 January 2006 20:10 (twenty years ago)

I'm nearing the end of the second trade, and Douglas is right--it's EVEN BETTER! There's hot Achilles/Patroklus m4m action!

And yeah, Paris is a dick, but wasn't that apparent already? Most of the characters have a thoroughly unmodern sense of ethics & morality, and I like how that makes them come across. Achilles is a jerk, Paris is a jerk, everyone treats women like shit, and Agamemnon's personal life is fascinating in its ambiguity.

Laura got me this for my birthday, FWIW.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Monday, 16 January 2006 20:28 (twenty years ago)

Re: AOB publishing frequency from before-- I don't actually know how frequently he's pumping these things out, but it seems like #22's been out for a good while now, and the subscription page on his website offers the next six issues in the mail for a set price, but with no mention of how long you have to wait to take receipt of all six issues.

The first two of seven projected volumes are available now.

It sounds like it's going to be a long while before the full series comes out, given that he's barely a third of the way into volume three as it is. I mentioned before that I liked the first volume a lot, and if the second volume really is better than the first, I may well end up following this series as soon as I have some more folding green to flash around.

― Chris F. (servoret), Monday, 16 January 2006 22:29 (twenty years ago)

I just read the first issue on Image's website, and it seems a little simplistic somehow, like it's written for kids. Reminds me of one of those Bible/Classical adaptations from The Eagle.

― chap who would dare to work for the man (chap), Monday, 16 January 2006 22:37 (twenty years ago)

burn on us!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 16 January 2006 23:05 (twenty years ago)

joe g: i wouldn't worry abt it being too simplistic. it's quite engaging, even for someone who has significant knowledge of classics/greek history/mythology/drama/whatnot. it really is fabulously put together.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Monday, 16 January 2006 23:32 (twenty years ago)

Joe, I thought of the same comparison at first. I think it's something about the art style.

Once things get going, though, I think he does a very good job of keeping things fast-paced without dumbing it down.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 00:36 (twenty years ago)

i think he expects his audience to know a reasonable amount about his subjects, their families and the varying stories abt them.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 00:54 (twenty years ago)

I love this! But I agree with Ian that it would be a little hard to follow with no classics background at all. I don't see what's so special about Helen's beauty (from the way that she's drawn), but hey. Second trade is great because it deals with Iphigenia, which is one of my favorite ambiguities, and there are so many different versions it's great to see which path Shonower took with the story. I hope he continues all the way through to the Odyssey...

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 01:53 (twenty years ago)

Helena has PHEREMONES. Pheremones, and a body that BURNS with PASSION. Passion for GREEK BOYS.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 02:27 (twenty years ago)

Helen has got big boob.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 02:52 (twenty years ago)

the first shot of her face, after all that build-up, is not that... wowing.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 03:20 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I was unimpressed with Helen as well. I almost would have liked it better if we never saw her, and were allowed to imagine our own version of the most beautiful woman in the world--she can't help but seem somewhat limited once given form, kinda like the movie for Stephen King's IT where fear itself manifests as a gigantic, stupid spider.

Also, I felt the Iliad really made Paris out to be more of a coward than a jerk, but the assholery certain works in light of his catastrophic selfishness.

― Laura H. WHO IS A GIRL (laurah), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 18:02 (twenty years ago)

I've always thought Helen must have been all hype anyway.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 18:10 (twenty years ago)

portraying helen will always be a problem, i think... unless you're really going to go with the "all hype" strategy. show her & she'll let you down, don't show her and it'll end up being a really distracting stylistic device

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 18:44 (twenty years ago)

Helen's agency in re: leaving Menelaus and screwing things up for everyone really depends on the source you read--it would have been just as easy to make her a passive and less vocal character that existed as a symbol or even a commodity, rather than as a complex personality. Once you make flesh her out as a multi-faceted individual and active participant in her destiny, it makes it really hard for her to function symbolically as this superlative creature that is all things to all people. Maybe that's more interesting, though.

― Laura H. (laurah), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 16:05 (twenty years ago)

Also (maybe a SPOILER for those who haven't read the source materials)
Menelaus takes Helen back after the sack of Troy, even though Agamemmnon and other urge him to kill her because she's so much trouble, so there must be something about her that is intristically lovable, something that surpasses her physical beauty or his wounded pride, so I guess for the reader to understand that she has to be fleshed out in some way.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 16:16 (twenty years ago)

I don't know, I would think genuine feeling--a sense of actual betrayal--would be more likely to motivate him to kill her. But if she's nothing more than a prize (and one of the most valuable ones in the world), why destroy such precious property? Part of makes Helen desirable to any individual man is not just her innate beauty but also her desirability to other men, and the status this confers to her (and whomever keeps her). Why fight so hard for a treasure only to throw it away? I think it's just as easy, if not easier, to justify her survival in the context of pride or superficial desire, rather than a sincere love.

― Laura H. (laurah), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 17:01 (twenty years ago)

This really is good. Thanks to whoever on this board recommended it, otherwise it would have stayed in my terminal "skip this part of the library shelf" schema. (See also Julius Knipl, anything by James Robinson or Barry Windsor-Smith).

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Thursday, 26 January 2006 13:03 (twenty years ago)

(By Barry Windsor-Smith, I meant P. Craig Russell. W-S is fine.)

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 27 January 2006 09:14 (twenty years ago)

I just finished the second volume from the local library. Not as good as vol. 1 which focused on a lot more of the political intrigue, but the Iphigenia bit in v2 was well done.

As for the Shanowar's Homely Helen, I think just showing her as simply an exotic (to the Trojans) beauty is the right way to go, since it's in keeping with the book's historical realism. After all, hotties are a dime a dozen in any era, but only Cate Blanchett is worthy going to war over, and only after much deliberation.

― c(''c) (Leee), Sunday, 29 January 2006 19:05 (twenty years ago)

Are there gods and stuff in it, or is it going for realism?

― chap who would dare to no longer work for the man (chap), Sunday, 29 January 2006 21:21 (twenty years ago)

Realism. Everyone believes in the gods and refer to them all the time (Greeks be beseechin'), but no gods on the page.

― Jordan (Jordan), Sunday, 29 January 2006 22:26 (twenty years ago)

...also, any place in the source texts where there's divine intervention, Shanower leaves open the POSSIBILITY of the gods having acted, but also suggests a way that human machinations probably would have had the same effect (e.g. the reason Iphigenia is sacrificed in v. 2).

― Douglas (Douglas), Sunday, 29 January 2006 23:38 (twenty years ago)

The smooth way he integrates gods into the story can be a bit confusing at the first reading -- Thetis calls herself divine, but she's as flesh and blood as Achilles. I like how Shanower treats divinity re: Heracles -- when that big bopper kicks off, everyone sez he "became a God."

― c(''c) (Leee), Monday, 30 January 2006 00:56 (twenty years ago)

Similarly, I like how Chiron isn't a centaur, just a hairy dude.

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 30 January 2006 01:33 (twenty years ago)

i'm kinda torn on whether i'd rather there actually be god action in this or not

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 30 January 2006 02:34 (twenty years ago)

Me too. There was no Judgement of Paris scene, correct?

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Monday, 30 January 2006 14:43 (twenty years ago)

It was all a dream!

― c(''c) (Leee), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:58 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

Maddie pointed me to this funny Eric Shanower column about his early gigs/misadventures.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 23 March 2006 16:33 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

Finally got around to reading the new trade (Betrayal: vol 1 or whatever) last night, so awesome.

This is in my top 5 books to recommend to non-comics people, for sure.

― Jordan, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 17:11 (eighteen years ago)

AGE OF BRONZE is one of the few titles that I can recommend to non-comics readers without any kind of reservation. In a perfect world, Eric Shanower would have a MacArthur grant or something to give him the resources to finish this up without having to worry about the vicissitudes of the comics market.

― Matt M., Wednesday, 20 February 2008 17:20 (eighteen years ago)

I reviewed it in Salon last week here. Short version: yeah, it's still totally great.

― Douglas, Tuesday, 26 February 2008 03:47 (eighteen years ago)

Nice article!

The prospect of waiting years for the next collection is terrible.

― Jordan, Tuesday, 26 February 2008 16:43 (eighteen years ago)

I'd buy the floppies, if only to encourage Shanower's efforts, but I have absolutely zero clue as to when they'll appear. And my local comic shop has a very random policy about ordering stuff.

I do think Age of Bronze would be equally effective (or profitable, if that matters) if Shanower just released it as a trade every so often. He's got something of a captive audience, we'd all buy it.

― Stone Monkey, Wednesday, 27 February 2008 08:58 (eighteen years ago)

Maybe he should try pre-orders or the "Radiohead model" (sorry) if floppy sales aren't working out.

― Jordan, Wednesday, 27 February 2008 16:09 (eighteen years ago)

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