Mon 18 Jun 2007
NY Times Book Review: Beowulf
Posted by Sean Hyde-Moyer under Friends , Announcements| [2] Comments
Wow. My friends are really kicking ass this week. Rich and Tina launched their new show, and now Gareth grabs a little national media attention.
You go!
I’ve talked about my friend Gareth Hinds here once before, when he signed a deal to publish with Candlewick Press. While King Lear is still working it’s way to the shelves, Candlewick has released a magnificent hardcover edition of an earlier work, a graphic novel adaptation of the old English epic poem, Beowulf.
I was thrilled to hear from Gareth that Beowulf was getting a review in today’s New York Times Sunday Book Review. The review compares three adaptations of the work, and they lead with Gareth’s new edition.
While I am enough of a geek to cringe when they call a graphic novel a comic-book, I can’t grouse too much, as they give the book a very
nice review. Here’s snippet:
Hinds stages great fight scenes, choreographing them like a kung-fu master and then drawing them from a variety of vantage points, with close-ups, wide angles and aerial views. In its way, the result is as visceral as the Old English, which was consciously onomatopoeic, and by changing his palette for each of the poem’s three sections he evokes its darkening rhythm.
It’s a fantastic book, much (all?) of which was hand painted on wood, which gives a subtle and beautiful sense of weight and age. You really should go buy it right now.
