Archive for the 'odyssey' Category

Sep 12 2021

The Odyssey and The Iliad, Romanian edition

Published by under iliad,odyssey

One of the coolest things that may occasionally happen to an author is receiving foreign editions of your books. There’s not a whole lot of money in foreign editions, but the wow factor of seeing your book in another language is really hard to beat. This is even more true when it’s a graphic novel, and you get to see the foreign translation juxtaposed with your illustrations. And best of all, with sound effects!! This new Romanian edition of The Odyssey and The Iliad is bringing me great joy. The publisher is Humanitas Junior.

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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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Jan 20 2019

The Iliad is almost here

Published by under appearances,iliad,odyssey,press

Dear Friends,

The Iliad comes out in less than two months, and I have now updated the official Iliad page on my website with information about how to pre-order it, and about my many events and appearances this spring and summer. All Iliad-related resources and info will be linked there, and spread via my email list and social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram).

Iliad cover image

Thanks!

-Gareth

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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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Jan 28 2013

Great review

Published by under odyssey,reviews

Wow, talk about being in good company! The review is very flattering in its own right, and supports my belief that The Odyssey is not just a ‘boy book’…

http://hellogiggles.com/my-recipe-for-gorgeously-grand-graphic-novels

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May 03 2012

The Odyssey in Korean

Published by under odyssey

I got an awesome surprise package in the mail yesterday. A box from Candlewick which turned out to contain 4 copies of my first translated edition: The Odyssey in Korean!

I suspect prose authors feel the same excitement when they get a copy of their book with an unfamiliar cover and a foreign title, but then of course the interior is completely impenetrable. With a graphic novel, on the other hand, I get to see my own artwork interspersed with cool Korean pictographic text and — best of all — sound effects. It’s *so* cool to see what they did with the sounds.

  

Then again, maybe the impenetrable wall of foreign text is cool:

So now the question is, do I have any readers out there who are fluent in Korean? If so, would you like a free copy of The Odyssey (on the condition that you read it and tell me what you think of the translation)?

By the way, the publisher is Prooni Books. For some reason Google Translate doesn’t work on their site.

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Jul 11 2011

Beautiful description of The Odyssey

Published by under odyssey,press

I won’t exactly call this a review, because it’s something else. But it’s truly lovely, thoughtful, and extremely gratifying in its specific praise of sequences from the book.

http://poetrymom.blogspot.com/2011/07/marriage-alone-modern-odyssey.html

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May 24 2011

One Odyssey video to rule them all

Published by under odyssey,process,video

I was asked to create an Odyssey video that summarizes my whole process, incorporating shorter bits of all my other videos as well as concept art. You can watch it below or click through to see it larger on YouTube.

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May 09 2011

Donation update and Etsy store

Published by under odyssey

The Odyssey page I donated to Atlantis Books was bought, and the store saved (my contribution helped a little bit, I’m sure, but someone swooped in with a HUGE donation at the end of the fundraiser and really saved the day). Anyway, yay! Now I can continue to dream of visiting there… one of these days.

As I mentioned, I also donated an Odyssey page to the ABC silent auction. They have posted a slideshow of the impressive array of work in the auction, here. My piece is about halfway through, or jump directly to it here.

I also opened my Etsy shop, which will soon have Odyssey pages for sale. In the meantime I put up some fun little gouache paintings I’ve done in the last few weeks (as things in the city have been blooming like crazy).

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Apr 18 2011

Odyssey originals

Published by under odyssey

I’m donating a page of original art from The Odyssey to the funding drive to save Atlantis Books.

I will also be donating a page to the ABC auction at Book Expo, and I hope to have some pages available via Etsy very soon. In the meantime, if you are keen to buy a particular page from the Odyssey originals, feel free to email me.

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