Author: Vertigo
Rating: worthy
Illustrator: John Bolton.
I know! Five days, five graphic novels in a row. Only on my blog! But this is the last for now, because I have a boatload of regular novels to review.
This novel fascinated me because of the artwork, which looks like someone took models and posed them for each frame, then ran the resulting picture through a graphics program like Gimp or Photoshop and applied a "painting" filter, because they look just like that - like they're photographed, but painted, or like they're painted but photographed. There's probably a name for this technique but I'm damned if I know what it is!
Of course if it was that and nothing more, then I'd be foolish to rate this worthy. This blog is far more about writing than about art. There has to be a story behind it all for me, and the story came through. It wasn't brilliant, but it was good enough and it was inventive.
This novel, as its title suggests, is rooted deeply in Greek mythology - the mythology of the vengeful furies, and featuring cameos by other characters, including an interestingly-rendered Hermes, and a shape-shifting bad guy named Cronus. We meet Lyta Hall, grieving over the death of her baby son some time before the story begins and not dealing with it, leading a life of meaningless sex and violent outbursts.>/p>
When both of these combine, she gets into trouble with the police. Since the officer knows her and doesn't want to heap any more problems on her shoulders, she's advised to try therapy again. One suggestion is acting therapy and she finds a flyer from the oddly-named Goatsong players who take her on even though they're not a therapy acting group. They're in process of gearing up for a trip to Greece to perform there in an ancient Greek theater.
Things start changing rapidly in Greece, and Lyta ends up in hell, where she encounters Hermes, who was dispatched there by Cronus. She frees him but runs into an angry Cronus and their dispute is now to be mediated, it seems, by the Dream King. This ultimately doesn't end well for Cronus. I rate this graphic novel a worthy read.
