ODY-C is a new sci-fi take on The Odyssey, turning the myth on its head by reversing the roles so that almost all the characters are female. For me it was hard going, obviously taking cues from Prophet‘s galaxy-wide palette but not exactly easy to get into with the prose style being what it is.
Great artwork but ridiculous 8 panel foldout opening pages with baffling preamble that almost put me off. The main thing that will be interesting is that, aside from two male characters, it’s totally female-centric and that’s refreshing. It’s beautiful to look at but will that be enough to sustain it? Writer Matt Fraction is unknown to me but he seems to have written a ton of the main characters for a lot of the major publishers as well as winning a fair few awards.
Speaking of Prophet, there have been two interim ‘Strike Files’ that fill in characters and back story for those just getting into it. The next arc – Earth War – begins Dec 24th and this is still one of the most intelligent, forward thinking sci-fi comics out there. Here’s a self-contained page from ‘Strike File 2’.
Another amazing-looking comic that reads badly is the MadMan ‘In Your Face 3D special’ which, despite having some of the best 3D I’ve ever seen in a comic, is dull as dishwater. The first half of the comic mainly consists of Madman and Mister Excitement running through all manner of alternate realities featuring versions of themselves as just about every comic character you can think of. Many are rendered in the style of the originals with some excellent stylistic observations but it’s just page after page of tedious dialogue.
Later on he spends 14 double page spreads battling flying snake-like beings whilst engaging in the kind of conversation you’d normally associate with a few jars down the pub. The depth of the imagery is great and the wormy beings are perfect to convey this but it’s repetitive and dull to read. Better are the 20 odd pin-up pages that form a large chunk of the end of the book, drawn by guest artists that play with the medium to varying degrees of success.
But what do I know? I’ve never read Madman in my life and am probably missing all sorts of clever plot points and character development, looks great but wasn’t for me. UPDATE: Actually there was a nice little story at the back of the book which dealt with creative plagiarism where the villain ripping off Madman’s look was called Vatchah Gondu – nice touch. It strikes me though that the 3D treatment would be better served on something like the current run of Sandman and would be perfect fodder to play with the inter-dimensional themes of the character.
