Archive for the 'Poe' Category

Apr 08 2019

All About Endpapers, or What You’ve Been Missing If You’ve Only Seen the Paperback of The Odyssey and The Iliad

A lot of my readers are not aware that the hardcover editions of The Odyssey and The Iliad have art in them that does not appear in the paperback editions.

At the beginning and end of a hardcover book is something called the Endpapers (or simply “ends”). These are usually separate sheets of paper that are used to bind the inside pages to the cover.

Ends fig a

Here are the endpapers I created for The Odyssey (click to see larger!)

Ends fig b

These are all actual vase paintings from classical Greece. Some of them are explicitly scenes from The Odyssey, others I just found thematically appropriate to allude to the story of Odysseus. In some cases I changed what kind of vessel they are painted on — in real life some are tiny and some are huge, and I wanted them to be more uniform in size.

For The Iliad, I chose a different approach. Here I use shields to tell the story of the lead-up to The Iliad. Again, you will only get these if you get the hardcover; but now at least you can see what you’re missing. In the book they’re printed in blue.

Ends fig c Ends fig d

The designs on Greek shields tend to be much less narrative than the vase paintings, so in this case I didn’t use real historical ones. (Quite a few of the shield designs inside the book are real, though not necessarily from the Bronze Age — but these I made up to tell the story, stylizing them in a way I think is reasonably consistent with Greek shield painting.)

They summarize the story of the beginnings of the Trojan War, as follows: (1) the founding of Troy, (2) Thetis and Peleus, (3) the Apple of Discord, (4) the abduction of Helen, (5) invoking the oath of the Achaean Kings, (6) Odysseus and Achilles being tricked into revealing themselves (as, respectively, sane and not a girl), (7) the fleet launching, (8) the sacrifice of Iphegenia at Aulis, (9) the archer Philoctetes bitten by a serpent, (10) the beginning of the war, (11) Chryses’ appeal to Agamemnon, and (12) the plague-arrows sent by Apollo.

Those, by the way, are all cool stories you should look up if you don’t know them 😉

Not all of my books have bonus artwork on the endpapers of the hardcover. If you’re wondering why that is, continue to Part 2, In Which the Author Geeks Out About Bookbinding.

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Aug 11 2015

Published by under Macbeth,odyssey,Poe,process

Today TeachingBooks.net is featuring an article I wrote about my process (in general, with specific focus on Macbeth). They also have a short audio clip I recorded about my approach to The Odyssey.

Poe status update: 1 month to go! Also, listening to The Iliad again in preparation for jumping into that.

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Dec 07 2014

Nightfall with Edgar Allen Poe

Published by under Poe,reviews,sketchbook

Those who aren’t on my mailing list may not have caught the fact that I’m currently working on a graphic novel adaptation of the works of Edgar Allen Poe. It seemed imperative, therefore, that I see Nightfall with Edgar Allen Poe by Molotov Theatre Group at DC Arts Center. It too is an adaptation of several of Poe’s stories, performed in a small venue on an intimate scale, and both my wife and I enjoyed it very much. It leads off with The Raven, which is pretty good but probably the weakest of the pieces. The strongest is their rendition of The Tell-Tale Heart, which features some truly impressive makeup and brilliant choreography. Unfortunately I believe this run is now over, but perhaps it will be reprised at some point.

Here are a few sketches I did during the performance (some minor spoilers).

The playbill credits the following:

Elliot Kushner – Poe

Matthew Marcus – Edgar, Policeman 1

Adam Adkins – Roderick Usher, Policeman 2

Stacy Whittle – Madeline Usher

Yoni Gray – The Raven, Sante

Jen Bevan – Lenore, Old Man

Eric Coble as scriptwriter, Mark Kamie as Director, Gregory Martin as composer/sound designer, Jen Bevan as choreographer and costume designer, Pete Vargo on lighting, Brian McDEermott on set design, Production Stage Mgr Katherine Offutt, Alex Zavistovich Board President and Fights/Props/Effects, and Emily Gray as Run Crew / Props Mistress.

Excellent job, all!

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