Move Over, Brad Pitt - Here's Age of Bronze: Sacrifice

Posted: Friday, July 2, 2004
Posted By: Jason Brice

PRESS RELEASE:

The Trojan War continues this week with the publication of Age of Bronze: Sacrifice, the second volume in Eric Shanower's Eisner Award-winning graphic novel series published by Image Comics. While movie-goers share mixed reactions to the current motion picture Troy, featuring Brad Pitt as Achilles, Shanower presents a version of the ancient Greek myth far more epic in scope and much closer to the traditional story.

With a single glance at Age of Bronze: Sacrifice, it's easy to see why this project earned Shanower the Eisner Award for Best Writer/Artist in both 2001 and 2003, and has prompted high praise from sources as varied as Entertainment Weekly and Archaeology Magazine. Every aspect of Age of Bronze: Sacrifice has been lovingly researched and dramatically told. Under Shanower's hand, the world of ancient Greece and Troy springs to life in precise black and white line art. Achilles is no box-office stud quickly approaching age forty, but a young warrior still in his teens, seeking his destiny and questioning his relationship to his family and fellow warriors. High King Agamemnon is more than just a greedy bully, he's a man torn by the conflicting demands of ambition, religion, and love.

The 224 pages of Age of Bronze: Sacrifice begin where the previous volume, Age of Bronze: A Thousand Ships, left off. Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, arrives in Troy with her lover Paris, but the reactions of the Trojans are mixed. Meanwhile, the Greeks-here properly called Achaeans-land at what they think is Troy and begin fighting, only to find that they've sailed too far and missed Troy completely. Finaly, the Greek army's leader, High King Agamemnon, faces an impossible choice-in order to reach Troy, he must slay his daughter as a sacrifice to the gods.

In early 1991Eric Shanower, a professional cartoonist, first conceived the idea to retell the complete Trojan War in a graphic novel form. Troy's story began in the eighth century B.C. when the Greek poet Homer composed The Iliad and The Odyssey. In Classical Athens the great Greek playwrights composed their masterpieces of tragedy using stories from the war at Troy. Since then, the story has been told and retold for many hundreds of years, continually gaining additional episodes and shooting off in new directions. For instance, in the Middle Ages, the episode of the Trojan prince Troilus and his lover Cressida became popular, culminating in William Shakespeare's play Troilus and Cressida. Shanower is using all this material in his Age of Bronze series, which will eventually be contained in seven volumes.

The site of Troy, the ancient city which, according to legend, was besieged by the massive Greek army in the Late Bronze Age, was rediscovered in the nineteenth century by the amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, a self-made millionaire about whom controversy still rages. Schliemann set out to prove that the legendary city of Troy was a real place and he succeeded. Today, the archaeological excavations at the site of Troy continue under a team of scientists from many nations and disciplines. Recent discoveries allow Shanower to bring the city and people of the Trojan War to life as they may well have looked in the thirteenth century B.C.

But the story of the Trojan War, though rooted in the past, is as alive today as it has ever been. "The themes of the story are relevant today just as they were 3000 years ago," Shanower says. "We need to look closely at the decisions our leaders make, especially in war. Are the meek being protected or are they being slaughtered? Is innocent blood paying for something it knows little about? We don't have ritual sacrifice to Olympian gods these days, but what are we sacrificing on the altars of big corporations? How is the soul of civilization being tortured by politicians blind to anything but their own near-sighted agendas? These questions applied in ancient times and they still apply today."

Age of Bronze: Sacrifice is published in hardcover by Image Comics. Find it in your local comic book store (call 1-888-COMIC-BOOK for the store nearest you), at your local book store, or online at http://www.age-of-bronze.com.

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