From: jholstei@scott.skidmore.edu (jeremy holstein)
Subject: Re: grendel
Organization: Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs NY
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 19:36:50 GMT

lf7z@ellis.uchicago.edu (glenn alan carnagey jr) writes:
> 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.
> >

Since no one has posted any sort of summary, I'll try to do a quick
one.  Grendel is a spirit of vengence in essence.  His identity is
passed from host to host, or people adopt his identity when the time
merits.  Whichever it is has never been spelled out/  The current
storyline is taking pplace far far in the future, after the collapse
of the Catholic church, and the creation of a gigantic World Wide
governmnet called Unow (which achieved world domination by blowing up
Japan)), and they're ruled by a person calling himself the
Grendel-Kahn.  
  The kid in War-child is the heir to the throne of the Grendel-kahn.

> 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

Ok, the Black and Whites were NOT a mini-series.  They were intended
to be a lengthy novel about Grendel, but sales were low so the book
was canned.  Thye're not wonderful, but they are very nice (and also
include an early version of Kevin Matchstick) and worth the price for
any Wagner enthusiasts.  Grendel first appeared in Cmico Primer #2.
The Mage run lasted from Mage #6-14.

> >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
> 
> Devil Inside (13-16)
> >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.

Silverback is only for the Grendel completeists.  It does feature
excerpts from the Grendel Novel, and some of Messner Loebs better
work, but its very self-reverential and strange.  #2, by the way, is
basically a Grendel meets Journey issue set in the 19th century
outposts.

Missing from this summary is Grendel : Devil's Vagury (a small print
run item featuring Hunter Rose as drawn by Dean Motter.  Highly
recommended), and A Grendel story published in A1 #4.  Also exceprts
from the Batman/Grendel book were published in Comics Interview two
years ago.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc