Age of Bronze: Image Comics

Showing posts with label Image Comics. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Betrayal Part One in Full Color

At last, Book Three of the Age of Bronze graphic novel series shines with full color for everyone to see! Betrayal Part One goes on sale today from Image Comics.

This volume tells the story of Philoktetes's betrayal and digs deeply into the beginnings of the Troilus and Cressida episode. The cover features the moment just after Philoktetes is bitten by the snake.

John Dallaire's colors bring to life the Achaean attack on the island of Tenedos, the embassy to Troy when Hektor seems to be the only person still trying to reach peace between the two sides, and Menelaus's drunken memories of growing up with Helen.

Age of Bronze Book Three: Betrayal Part One--in color!--is available for sale at comics stores and wherever books are sold. Here's a short preview:

Friday, July 1, 2022

Iphigenia Lives Again

BUY HERE

When I conceived the idea for Age of Bronze, my graphic novel retelling of the complete legend of the Trojan War, I knew I’d be using a few plays as sources for my version of the story. After Age of Bronze began publication, I realized that I’d be able to repurpose my comics panels as illustrations. How interesting it would be, I thought, to publish illustrated versions of many of my sources, in particular the dramas.

In late 2008, I mentioned to my friend Edward Einhorn, playwright, director, and children’s author, my idea of using a public domain English translation for a new edition of Euripides’s Iphigenia in Aulis, illustrated with my Age of Bronze imagery. I was concerned, however, that an old translation would seem out of step. Edward had previously translated a version of Lysistrata, the Greek comedy by Aristophanes, and he offered the idea of translating Iphigenia himself anew. Seemed like a fine idea to me. Within a few weeks, Edward had finished a draft of his new translation.

During the next year I chose panels from Age of Bronze to accompany Edward’s text and began a rudimentary book design. Edward wanted my artwork to not simply accompany his script, but to interact with it as much as possible, to help bring the script to life. Neither Edward nor I particularly liked my attempts much. Unable to find a look that satisfied both Edward and me, I put the project aside in favor of more urgent work.

In early 2013, Edward staged a full production of his Iphigenia script, complete with music, through his Untitled Theater Company #61 at LaMama in Manhattan. In the classical tradition, the actors used masks, expertly brought to life from my Age of Bronze character designs. Graciously, Edward flew me to NYC to see a performance—which I found terrific—and to participate in a question-and-answer session with the audience afterward.

Meanwhile, the book project lay stagnant, until Edward asked another cartoonist for help with book design for Iphigenia in Aulis. He thought the work of Bishakh Som, then editor and contributor to the anthology comic Hi-Horse and cartoonist of the recent graphic novel Apsara Engine, had some resonance with my Age of Bronze artwork. Bishakh gave designing Iphigenia in Aulis a shot. In the end, Bishakh wasn’t happy with the results and bowed out of the project.

Iphigenia sat in limbo again. Finally, Edward’s wife, Connie Wu, designed the book, integrating the text and artwork with comics dialog pointers and interspersing the text with the artwork so that the elements lent each other a bit of movement. I finished eliminating word balloons from the images and drew a couple new illustrations for the book. The cover uses the image from the poster I designed for Edward’s 2013 theatrical production.

I’d originally planned to publish Iphigenia in Aulis myself, but Edward urged me to approach Image Comics, the publisher of Age of Bronze. I didn’t think Image would have any interest in publishing a play script, but I figured asking wouldn’t bring on any more rejection than I've weathered many times in the publishing business. I submitted the project to Image and heard nothing back for a few months. I figured that meant Image had no interest, but my request for Image to confirm a rejection prompted an acceptance in early 2020.

Covid-19 caused some delays and problems with paper stock accessibility, but finally Image released the Age of Bronze edition of Iphigenia in Aulis several weeks ago. It doesn’t use my original choice of paper, but the paper stock matches the Age of Bronze graphic novels. It’s available now wherever you buy books and graphic novels, and you can buy it from the Hungry Tiger Press website here:

Link to buy

I think Edward’s script of Euripides's Iphigenia in Aulis is excellent, and not just because he used my Age of Bronze spellings of names and evoked in some of the script's textual points echoes of the cultural background I present in Age of Bronze. Edward just writes lively as a matter of course. Euripides ain’t no slouch, either, I can tell you!

Thursday, August 12, 2021

More Betrayal in Color

John Dallaire is still coloring Age of Bronze: Betrayal Part One. Here's another sample page of finished color, the scene where Philoktetes's foot is pierced by one of his arrows.

Looks great, doesn't it?

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

The Color of Sacrifice

It's here at last!

As just published by Image Comics, Age of Bronze Book 2: SACRIFICE shines forth in full color, thanks to the restrained and steady hand of John Dallaire, colorist. Newly colored artwork enhances Helen's arrival at Troy, the accidental battle at Mysia, the regrouping of the Achaean army, the sacrifice of Iphigenia, and more.

You can buy a copy of Sacrifice by clicking here.

Working with John on coloring Age of Bronze is quite an experience. My drawings are extremely detailed and he spends the time to color each bead in a necklace and each stripe on a tunic. John assigns a unique skin tone and a unique hair color to each character. We're both sticklers for consistency, and unless there's a specific story reason for a character's color to change, all these colors need to be carried through hundreds of pages.

As the creator of Age of Bronze, I have final say on John's color work. Pages generally go through several color versions before I okay a final version ready for publication. Part of my task is to catch lapses in John's consistency. Turnabout is fair play, and while John's coloring my work, he catches lapses in my consistency, mistakes I've made in the black-and-white artwork. These usually consist of missing costume details. Occasionally John fills in easy and obvious corrections, but sometimes I need to add elements—such as armbands and straps, things like that—which I originally forgot. Disappearing sandals and wristbands have been particularly annoying.

Some backgrounds are so complicated or obscured by foreground figures or word balloons that when I look at John's colored version I can tell he had no idea what I'd intended in my artwork. Usually these instances are easy to fix, but sometimes even I have no idea what I originally intended. Fortunately I saved photocopies of my penciled artwork, and I can often look at those to figure out confusing backgrounds. But it's annoying when I realize that I originally drew something in pencil, then mistakenly inked it differently than what I'd intended. Those mistakes are often the cause of confusion in John's coloring. Depending on the specific circumstances of each of these instances, I ask John to revise the color as seems most appropriate.

Of course, most readers won't notice these things. And they shouldn't. Readers should be following the story. All the details and all the color are there to support the story, to bring it to life, to transport the reader to the long-ago world of the Trojan War, to keep the spell of the drama going from first page to last. I hope this new color version of Sacrifice will do that for you.

To whet your appetite, below is a six-page excerpt from Age of Bronze Book 2: SACRIFICE. Click on each page to see it larger.

Friday, December 20, 2019

Sacrifice - New Cover

Sacrifice, book two in the Age of Bronze graphic novel series, will be published by Image Comics in full color for the first time in February 2020. Colorist John Dallaire brings the same subtle palette and vibrant hues that he brought last year to book one, A Thousand Ships.

Full color brings new dimension to the story, especially as Achilles battles Telephus in the vineyards of Mysia, as a storm scatters the Achaean fleet, as Paris and Helen wake within a fog-bound world, and as political shenanigans point Iphigenia toward the sacrificial altar. The full human drama of the story of the Trojan War comes to life again.

Take a look at the new cover for the new color edition of Sacrifice.


Age of Bronze: Sacrifice, color edition coming in February 2020.

For samples of story pages in color, click here to see the earlier posting.

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Sacrifice in Color

So where's the new full-color edition of Age of Bronze: Sacrifice, you ask?

It was supposed to be out in September. Now it's December.

When John Dallaire colored A Thousand Ships, he spent about seven years on it. He was scheduled to complete the coloring of Sacrifice in one year. One year wasn't long enough, so publication was postponed.

The good news is that Sacrifice in full color will be out in February 2020 from Image Comics.

In the next couple weeks, John will be finishing the final touches to the coloring and I'll be finishing the layout to send to the publisher. Here's a preview to tide you over until Age of Bronze: Sacrifice is released for the first time in full color in February 2020:

Click on any image to see it larger.