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Rare Flavours, the next miniseries Ram V and Filipe Andrade debuted in August. Kind of. BOOM! released an ashcan (black and white only comic, with lettering from Andworld Design) called Rare Flavours #1 Tasting Menu Ashcan.
Posted in: Comics, Review | Tagged: Bryan Talbot, luther arkwright, Penguin
The Legend Of Luther Arkwright Review: Welcome Back, Luther
The Legend Of Luther Arkwright. That's it. That's the sentence.
There are more Luther Arkwright comics, and they're precisely as humanist and anti-fascist as you'd hope.
You know the history, but pretend you don't: 50 years ago, Bryan Talbot wrote and drew the issues that would eventually become The Adventures Of Luther Arkwright. Since then, the TPB's influenced The Invisibles and The Matrix while also maintaining their cachet amongst the comics cognoscenti. Twenty years ago, Talbot released Heart Of Empire, a sequel to …Adventures, largely about how power corrupts and the revolution fermented at the end of Adventures soured (to use Adrian Tchaikovsky's phrase).
But that's all prologue. What struck me immediately in The Legend Of Luther Arkwright was how often Arkwright loses fights definitively. The titular character is outmatched and spends most of the OGN in a coma or dodging the more powerful villain.
Humanist isn't used by mistake, either. The most powerful psychic Luther's ever seen is introduced as an abuse survivor (Zaffron Waldorf) so badly victimized that their capacity for language is destroyed. That she or they survived is partially a credit to Luther Arkwright's old friend Harry Fairfax who recognized Zaffron only as "simple" and begrudgingly allowed them to join. It is impossible to read the comic and not get a sense of the power of ordinary heroism.
As you might imagine, The Legend Of Luther Arkwright rewards re-reading. My criticisms feel paltry when compared to the final product: I would have liked more staggering ink pen detail ala …Adventures, and at least one subplot reads like Talbot double underlining a point.
In the end: The Legend Of Luther Arkwright is, thus far, my favorite graphic novel of 2022.
Rich typed a lot in his feature on the day of The Legend Of Luther Arkwright's launch, and it's worth clicking over to read just how excited the OGN's debut made him.
A new book in Bryan Talbot's award-winning science fiction graphic novels series, starring the legendary character Luther Arkwright
The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, first serialised in 1978, is considered by many to be the first British graphic novel. Praised by many writers and artists, including Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Jean Giroud (Moebius) and Michael Moorcock, the ground-breaking, experimental adult SF story was a seminal work, inspiring and influencing many comic creators. Its sequel, Heart Of Empire, was published in 2001. Both books have been continually in print since they were first published.
Set fifty years later, The Legend of Luther Arkwright is another stand-alone story. While still maintaining total continuity with the Arkwright mythos, it is a different kind of adult adventure. Pursued across multiple historically divergent parallel worlds, both utopian and dystopian, and facing a far superior adversary, Arkwright battles to save humanity from mass destruction; his only edge is his experience and force of will.
The Legend of Luther Arkwright, beautifully drawn by master storyteller and Eisner Award-winning comics creator Bryan Talbot, is a milestone in British comics history.
The Legend Of Luther Arkwright
9/10
The Legend Of Luther Arkwright. That’s it. That’s the sentence. There’s more Luther Arkwright, and it’s exactly as humanist and anti-fascist as you’d hope.
Credits
Writer, Artist, Letterer
Bryan Talbot
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