Thursday, November 23, 2006

Grendel by Matt Wagner



Whatever happened to Matt Wagner?

In the dim and distant past of my youth, he created wonderful comics, but today, it’s just fairly standard work for hire at Marvel or DC. A real waste.

His best work; Grendel, started as the tale of antihero crime lord Hunter Rose. Over the years it developed, evolving and mutating into something unique. Hunter Rose died but the mantle of Grendel always carried on, passing first from individual to individual but eventually influencing whole societies & cultures in an ever more complex, intriguing way.

The stories were always brilliantly written, with marvellous characters in deeply enjoyable tales.

Grendel: Devil Tales contains two of the most satisfying experimental comic stories I've ever read. The first story revolves around a 5x5 panel page, whilst the second presents the story in vertical panels.

Whilst this may sound like a pretentious waste of time, Wagner pulls it off spectacularly, produces two great stories &, as a bonus, provides the wonderful art to go with them. Pure brilliance. Superb, tight plot, visual storytelling of the highest order.

I miss Matt Wagner, maybe, someday, he’ll come back to us.

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