Sunday, September 12:00-12:50 pm
Topic:
Matt Fraction and Christian Ward have re-written one of the fundamental epic myths of Western culture in ODY-C- and in the process have produced a book that looks and reads like nothing else on the stands. Join the creators in this discussion on this book.
Panelists:
- Matt Fraction, Christian Ward, Professor Ben Saunders
Discussion:
Let us jump straight into this discussion by saying I think Matt Fraction is a powerhouse of a writer and a real inspiration for anyone looking to write in comics.
Ben Saunders the moderator of the panel starts by asking Matt why he wanted to work with Christian Ward (Note this quickly became a cute back and forth of compliments to each other). Matt basically concluded with saying he saw Christian Ward on all these projects just wanted to take his work and really let it out, he wanted Christian the "stallion" to let loose and be epic because this story was going to be epic. By epic I mean issue 1 came out with an 8 page foldout image.
Once the egos of each artist was stroked the rest of the panel was discussion the approach of adapting The Odyssey into a futuristic female lead version in ODY-C. For those of you who don't know First was Matt Fractions approach to writing the story, ODY-C is written in Matt's best attempt to write dactylic hexameter (closes to Homer's Odyssey) which basically no one uses anymore and add a level of creativity that ad to telling this epic tale. I can't explain how thorough Matt is when it comes to writing and on this book he wanted to go all out.
In Matt and Christian's version of the story Matt wanted to be able to tell a tale his daughter could read and believe in the heroes (not the male misogynistic tales from the past) so the world is gender bent and even the gods are androgynous(turns out the story is violent and his daughter can't read it but that was the start for him).
Briefly, let's discuss Christian Wards epic art for the book. His goal was to top him self each issue and expand and create and reinvent the page every issue. The book feature huge sprawling scenes and panels that look like art that could hang on a wall. My favorite thing he did is the gods; In this book the gods stand above the panels and outside the world of the book almost breaking the fourth wall( they also don't speak like the rest of the book) they act on their on and its such an ingenious was to tackle gods in this myth.
Full disclosure I read ODY-C and couldn't get into it because its hard to follow there is a learning curve but after this panel I want to read it and try because it was an amazing creation these guys have made.
