Books: Sláine: The Horned God

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Sláine: The Horned God
Written by Pat Mills
Art by Simon Bisley
1989




Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/

Torn from the pages of 2000AD (Britain's best loved long-lasting weekly science-fiction comic - obviously) Sláine: The Horned God is a stone cold classic of savagely seductive swords and sorcery. Full of tasty pagan goodness with extensively researched details on things like - oh the three weapons of the Earth Goddess (The Flaming Spear of the Sun, The Silver Sword of the Moon and The Cauldron of Blood - obviously), Dragon Ghosts and how to have a perfect Warp Spasm (amongst many other things): this is ancient historical legends with the bloody bits left in - and then extra bloody bits thrown in for good measure. Because everyone loves bloody bits.

Starring Slaine - (England's answer to Conan the Barbarian) - a good-looking honourable berserker lug type: who's always to make quips and axe up all the bad guys and his trusty (or should that be untrustworthy) dwarf Ukko - who's constantly conniving and scheming ways to rustle up gold and riches (in which he is always thwarted - obviously) it's fairly standard stuff. The main thing about this book - the reason it's a comics classic and still revered amongst so many - is the resplendently fully painted artwork by Simon Bisley. If you've never had the pleasure: then your eyes are in for a feast (ouch! all those reds and oranges!) . Reading this as a kid was like being raised on caviar and quail eggs and left my palate permanently skewed to expecting comic books to look as pretty as they can (which is basically why I used to find (still find) Marvel and DC so hard to get into). Every page - hell every panel - is lovingly and tenderly executed to achieve maximum effect. Seriously - even if ever page was in French or Japanese you'd still be able to enjoy the hell out of this: it's that good.

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Links: Comic Book Resources Review, Den of Geek Review, Cy's Matters Review, The Tearoom of Despair Article: Biz.

Further reading: Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 03, Nikolai Dante: The Romanov Dynasty, A.B.C. Warriors: The Black Hole, 300, Northlanders, Mezolith, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.

All comments welcome.