Author: Matt Fraction
Publisher: Image Comics
Rating: WORTHY!
Illustrated by Christian Ward.
I had some mixed feelings about this and in the end didn't feel like it was something I wanted to pursue as a series (I'm not much of a series kind of person!), but I was very glad to have read this one volume just for the experience and for the art work. It was the art work, in the end, which made me consider this a worthy 'read'.
This graphic novel takes Homer's Odyssey, and renders all the characters as female (or as something part way between male and female), and sets the action in space, but otherwise follows Homer's text quite closely. Therein, I think, lay one of the problems, because the text is very obscure and clearly had to be edited for a graphic novel, which tended to make it even more obscure, unfortunately. The story was bent to fit the original Odyssey - regardless of whether it scanned as a story - in this new context. It was hard to follow because there really was no flow to follow.
The ship's captain is Odyssia, and she and her crew of female warriors are embarking upon the journey back to Ithicaa after taking down Troiia. The problem is that the 'gods' (or whatever their replacements are supposed to be here) decide to mess with these people. There is no motivation given for this in this story, and so we have Odyssia and her people slamming up against one obstacle after another just on whims.
So the story not so great, but the psychedelic art work was amazing. The colors were brilliant, the imagery stunning, and every page a bath of brilliant hue and strong line. It's worth seeing just for that. The story did serve to explicate and conjoin the images, so it had its purpose, even though it often made little sense to me. Perhaps if you've read the original, which I haven't, you will get more from this.
Overall, though, I rate this a worthy view more than a read, but you might want to try just one, as I did, and make up your mind after that. I read this on the iPad, so I can't speak to the quality of the coloring in print form. I hope it's as good as the electronic version, because if it isn't, you'll be missing a lot.
