Odysseus

Sun, Aug 3, 2008

Big Head Press, who brought is the excellent La Muse series which just finished this week, are starting to serialise a new comics story, Odysseus the Rebel, Steven (Punisher, Spider-Man) Grant’s take on one of the true Classics of Western Literature (and a cracking great story, incidentally), the Odyssey. Odysseus the Rebel, with artwork by Scott Bieser, will launch with the first thirteen pages on Monday 4th of August and then continue on the Monday, Wednesday, Friday one-page updates each week that we’re familiar with from their La Muse serialisation.

(above, Odysseus finds out how spiteful Poseidon can be when he puts a jellyfish under his foot as he enjoys a cooling paddle in Odysseus the Rebel by Steven Grant, art by Scott Bieser, beginning on Big Head Press on Monday August 4th)

Steven is taking a slightly different tack from Homer’s tale though, with his Odysseus actually rebelling against the unpredictable and often childish and spiteful Greek gods because he believes men should make their own destiny, not have their lives dictated by supernatural beings : “This is a hero the gods are determined to break, to prove forever that even the greatest of men is less than nothing to the smallest of gods, but he is a hero who will not be broken, even when his goal is snatched right out of his grasp, when the men under his command are butchered and crushed around him, when his comrades-in-arms are made to share his punishments only because they fought alongside him, when he is even cast down to hell.” Which makes me think that Steven is perhaps a big fan of the old Jason and the Argonuats movie which had some similar idea, although not expressed quite as directly. Then again, if Jason is an influence that’s a good thing in my book and I’ll be having a look. Especially as I can’t resist Classic myth and literature, its such a rich seam that still informs much of today’s storytelling.