Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Beowulf

BEOWULF: Gareth Hinds: Candlewick Press: Young Adult Nonfiction: 128 pgs.

Hinds sketches a new take on the oft told epic poem, Beowulf, in this gruesome graphic novel. Why wield away hours struggling through 3,183 lines of Old English when you can slog through a little text and blast past a cavern of dark, harsh and scary illustrations to pierce the tale. Essentially, Beowulf, hero of the Geats, encounters three antagonists: vicious monster Grendel, Grendel's vengeful mother and lastly a virulent dragon.

Hinds breaks the story into three books. He uses gory dark colors and pointed frightful creatures to paint the slaughters in books one and two. "Clang," "Sswackkhack," "Shlup." The colors transform into muted grays in the final book when the hero slays the dragon but is himself mortally wounded. Beowulf, now King of the Geats, is cremated and buried along with the dragon's treasure on a cliff overlooking the sea.

DLD

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

With the resurgence of Beowulf coming from theatres, it is nice to have a good handheld version we can read that doesn't take a degree in old english!

Hooray for graphic novels!!!