From: lf7z@ellis.uchicago.edu (glenn alan carnagey jr)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Re: grendel
Keywords: Interesting, more info
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:47:31 GMT
Reply-To: lf7z@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Aug12.210347.12090@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> conty@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (Conty-kun) writes:
>In article <1992Aug12.184536.16540@morgan.ucs.mun.ca>, cwelsh@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (Craig Welsh  8823239) writes:
>> 
>> Anyway, here's a loaded question for you all out there. Could someone
>> give a BRIEF summary of the series so I can better understand what is
>> happening.
>
It started as a 3 issue b/w mini series, and continued as back-ups in
Mage (another book Wagner did for Comico, also very good), and these tell the
same story (Hunter Rose & Argent) in very different ways.  The back-ups are
reprinted as "Devil by the Deed", and this is probably the most beautiful book
I own from a purely aesthetic point of view.  Wagner refuses to reprint
the B/W series because he's not happy with it, and prices have skyrocketed,
this year they were asking $40-50 apiece.  And since they were printed on
cheap paper, they're not in that great a condition, and they're very hard to
find.  They're not *that* good, and you don't have to read them to understand
what's going on since the same ground is covered by the TPB

>There are several, ALL out of print:
>- DEVIL BY THE DEED.  The story of the "Hunter Rose" Grendel and his eventual
>  downfall.

Grendel then got it's own title, the first 12 issues are collected as
Devil's Legacy
>- <name?>  The story of Christine Spar, Rose's granddaughter, who became
>  Grendel to avenge the death of her son by the vampiric Tujiro.

Devil Inside (13-16)
>- Another TPB showing Brian Su Ling's (Christine's friend and occasional
>  lover) descent into the Grendel persona.
....
>The last two TPBs cover the first 16 issues of the run of the GRENDEL comic,
>which ran for 40 issues before Wagner ran out of ideas at the time.

There was also a 3-issue mini called Silverback, which is the story of Argent,
the Wolf-like opponent of Hunter Rose, which came out at the same time as the
later Grendel issues.  These are not so easy to find, I was out of the country
when #2 came out, and I still haven't found a copy.

Though out of print, the TPBs are not that hard to find, and neither are the
later issues of Grendel that are not reprinted.  Summarizing 17-40 is more than
I'm up for, but it's mostly the story of Orion Assante, the first Grendel
Khan, and the events that led up to his becoming the Khan. Orion is the child's
father and the child's mother was Orion's consort late in the series.  Having
recently reread  all but the b/w (which I don't have) I agree with Enrique,
Wagner was definitely running out of steam at the end, the break probably
did him good (artistically, I mean) and he's doing exactly what he said he
would before all the problems, right down to the creative team.  But these
are some of the best comics I've read, and the wait was killing me.

Hey! Who's been scrawling in my notebook?

Vivat Grendel!
Glenn-Khan
......................................................................
"Holy Wednesday ... when the Passion according to Saint Luke
   is read.  This proved impossible, though, when it was
   discovered that Grendel had planted a homing beacon in
   St. Elvis Cathedral that attracted the Tower's entire
   pigeon population to roost there overnight"
.............................................................................
"and sometimes we all need masks, eh? If the world around you wears a false
 face, how does one confront it bare?"
   ---Matt Wagner
     g-carnagey@uchicago.edu, if you must know
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Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc