Herakles Book 1

Wow. The art in this is gorgeous, and I think Cour does a fantastic job of conveying Heracles' negative characteristics (brutal, thoughtless, overemotional) without losing sight of the traits that make him sympathetic and admirable (regret, loyalty, longsuffering in the face of the cruel vagaries of the gods). The humor, dark and wry and snagged subtly in the lines of the artwork, left me struggling to muffle snickers in public more than once.

This book grew on me. At first I didn’t care for it, but by the end I was entertained and interested to see who the story plays out. Herakles, is the Greek equivalent of Hercules so the story is very familiar. He is sent on his trials and tasked to impossible quests. This Herakles is more a Game of Thrones type character than a Disney character. He is brash, gruff, and very rough. We travel with him to complete four or five labors, and they are not pretty. They are violent, but not bloody as drawn in this book. I now want to see how this author/artist bring this story to completion. But at the same time, I don’t find it so unique and great that I would buy it for my library.