Part of my Once Upon a Time 9 reading, this fits the mythology section best.
Based on the myth of Cúchulainn, the Hound of Ulster.
Cúchulainn and the whole Táin/Red Branch Knights stories are m favourite myths and legends. And I think they would make an awesome film1 . This graphic novel retells the Cu Chulainn story from his childhood up until he heads off to the Isle of Skye to train with Skye herself. There are a fair few changes from the story I’m more familiar with, and that threw me out o the story a few times. But I’ll be rereading this and hopefully that won’t happen again. Every retelling of a myth deserves to be able to tell its own story and change what it needs to.
The artwork is, of course, important in a graphic novel. Here is is mostly black and white illustrations, with the odd bit of colour, red, used to make out specific highlights. It is very effective and I love the look of the book.
This was a kickstarter project, so I’m not sure how widely the book is available. I presume it will be out there in some form at a later date. But that also means that the sequels, Defender and Liberator are not definitely going to be published. i hope they are, I’d certainly buy and read them, I think that the whole story needs to be told before I can make up my mind on whether the alterations to what I know of the story work or not.
Overall, it is a great looking book and the story is good start to the tale. But if the other volumes never get made it’ll be a disappointment.
View The Kickstarter page
they could also make a terrible horrible travesty of a film ↩
That artwork certainly looks striking, might have to see if I can track down a copy!
Darren @ Bart’s Bookshelf´s last blog post ..Saturday Soundtrack
The art is wonderful, I’d recommend it on that alone if you enjoy your visual books.