Grendel: Black, White, and Red

Rating:
Summary: A series of Wagner's short, stark, unforgettable stories
Review: Matt Wagner's Grendel is a character created to explore and examine the nature of aggression and its impact on the individual and on the community. The first to wear the infamous Grendel mask and wield the peculiar two bladed spear was the ruthless, self-directed master criminal Hunter Rose. In Grendel: Black, White, & Red, we are treated to a series of Wagner's short, stark, unforgettable stories, each one illustrated by a different artist and all showcasing the dark world of crime, revenge, the human psyche, and a primal justice that bears no relationship to courtroom law. This is a "must" for graphic novel genre enthusiasts in general, and Matt Wagner fans in particular!

Rating:
Summary: Grendel - The Devil's Inner Side
Review: This book fills in a great many rough gaps left in "Devil By The Deed". Through the many and varied talents displayed in these stories, we are made aware of how he thinks and feels about the world around him. The different authors' takes on where the character came from, how he goes about his business and how he relates to the people in his life paint a vivid picture of how a gifted young boy could become a fiend.

Mr. Wagner first wrote 'Grendel' as an attempt to explore evil through what began as a simple device of reversing the visages of the original Beowulf and Grendel. The dashing villain and the monstrous 'hero' combined to create a world that descended into the chaos described in the later issues of the comic series. "Black, White & Red" illustrates how inevitable that decline must have been.

Overall, this book is an excellent value on a number of levels. A first-time reader will not need to track down "Devil By The Deed" to understand what is going on. The varied writing and art styles emphasize the richness of the world and characters that Mr. Wagner unleashed. And, of course, the reader comes away with a sense of how precious true 'goodness' can be in a world when evil is in such ready and varied supply.

Rating:
Summary: Great, but Who Cares?
Review: This is a collection of short stories about Hunter Rose, the first character in Matt Wagner's Grendel mythos to have been possessed by the dark force known as Grendel. Each of the short stories are beautifully illustrated in diverse styles by such talented artists as Teddy Kristiansen, Tim Bradstreet, Mike Allred, Matt Wager, etc. in a wonderfully clever black, white and red colour scheme. The black and white helps bring out the noir mood of the stories (and is well suited Grendel's black and white costume), while the red highlights such items as the blood and roses closely associated with Hunter Rose and Grendel. This technique is not fully innovative (see Miller's Sin City series and some arthouse movies), but is well done here. The stories are all by Matt Wagner and are, of course, well written. Unfortunately, some aspects of the stories rob them of their full power.

First of all, if you are nonfan and not familiar with Grendel/Hunter Rose, those stories whose purpose is mainly to flesh out his history are not very meaningful. You get a glimpse at his story, but that's it. Secondly, if you are a fan familiar with the characters, the fact that they were only around for a extremely brief, although brilliant run and are now a long dead and forgotten part of the mythos in more recent stories also renders the increased background of Hunter Rose less meaningful (and no new insight into the Grendel entity itself is offered). It is not unlike the black character in Kubrick's version of the Shining: sure, he was interesting in the beginning, but there was no point bringing him back into the story just to get killed by an axe. Mayber Wagner will prove me wrong when he finally takes back control of the series.

Fortunately, I believe it is still possible for readers, even casual ones, to get caught up in the short stories whose focus are more upon nonrecurring characters (thus we get their complete story). However, while those stories are effective examples of noir literature, they are all too brief for the reader to get as tied up with the characters as one would wish and the supernatural/superhero aspects of these stories also take away from their effectiveness.

Matt Wagner covered noir territory far more effectively in his Sandman Mystery Theatre series. Still, this collection is a rather handsome volume.

Rating:
Summary: Great, but Who Cares?
Review: This is a collection of short stories about Hunter Rose, the first character in Matt Wagner's Grendel mythos to have been possessed by the dark force known as Grendel. Each of the short stories are beautifully illustrated in diverse styles by such talented artists as Teddy Kristiansen, Tim Bradstreet, Mike Allred, Matt Wager, etc. in a wonderfully clever black, white and red colour scheme. The black and white helps bring out the noir mood of the stories (and is well suited Grendel's black and white costume), while the red highlights such items as the blood and roses closely associated with Hunter Rose and Grendel. This technique is not fully innovative (see Miller's Sin City series and some arthouse movies), but is well done here. The stories are all by Matt Wagner and are, of course, well written. Unfortunately, some aspects of the stories rob them of their full power.

First of all, if you are nonfan and not familiar with Grendel/Hunter Rose, those stories whose purpose is mainly to flesh out his history are not very meaningful. You get a glimpse at his story, but that's it. Secondly, if you are a fan familiar with the characters, the fact that they were only around for a extremely brief, although brilliant run and are now a long dead and forgotten part of the mythos in more recent stories also renders the increased background of Hunter Rose less meaningful (and no new insight into the Grendel entity itself is offered). It is not unlike the black character in Kubrick's version of the Shining: sure, he was interesting in the beginning, but there was no point bringing him back into the story just to get killed by an axe. Mayber Wagner will prove me wrong when he finally takes back control of the series.

Fortunately, I believe it is still possible for readers, even casual ones, to get caught up in the short stories whose focus are more upon nonrecurring characters (thus we get their complete story). However, while those stories are effective examples of noir literature, they are all too brief for the reader to get as tied up with the characters as one would wish and the supernatural/superhero aspects of these stories also take away from their effectiveness.

Matt Wagner covered noir territory far more effectively in his Sandman Mystery Theatre series. Still, this collection is a rather handsome volume.

Rating:
Summary: Eww
Review: This is where I decided to jump into the Grendel story, and this is pretty inaccessible. There is a child prodigy named Hunter Rose who grows up to be a crime lord prone to unnecessary outbursts of savage violence, because the woman that he loved very dearly died of an illness. There is also a werewolf named Argent who is trying to kill Hunter, because Hunter personifies evil and Argent is the only one physically capable of stopping Hunter, because Hunter is pretty much untouchable in combat. Hunter wears the Grendel costume that you see in the image of the book cover, but what you may not see is that he is carrying a rather large fork as his weapon. Think about that. This is a grown man who carries a razor sharp two pronged fork.

I'm aware that most all art, and especially comic art, requires the suspension of disbelief; but I think that for someone to suspend their disbelief it requires the person to want to put aside differences because of a compelling story. Hunter Rose is one of the most unlikable protagonists I've read recently, and pretty much this entire story follows his trite life story.

Towards the second chapter of Grendel, there is a section called "Devil's Requiem" where Hunter is remembering his old girl and it pretty much turns into a full on Freakfest. I found Wagner's stab at erotic prose to be really amusing,
"In her arms I was reborn. In her mouth, I was reprieved. In her bosom, reignited. In her valley I was received... Our love bore a lust so sublime." I didn't like it.

That being said, the black white and red color scheme is actually nice, there is negative space all over, and the art really heightens the story. The art is also geared towards adult audiences, there's a bit of full frontal, I can recall a few freaky sex scenes as well as a scene involving a tween prostitute. In terms of explicit violence, there is an entire story devoted to Grendel torturing a low level henchmen for information.

It was pretty gory and I found it disturbing. I happen to have read the "Preacher" series, which is also very gory, and I found Grendel to be a lot more disturbing because of how skilled the various artists are at portraying violence. The violence is not very glamorous, I felt kind of sick after I had read the whole thing.

I don't mind if you disagree with me, because I haven't read any other Grendel material. I write from the perspective of someone who was considering buying this as an entrance into Grendel.

Rating:
Summary: My Second Grendel Book
Review: This was the second of Wagner's works on Grendel that I picked up, the first being Devil By the Deed. Out of the two I'd have to say I preferred "Devil By the Deed". While "Devil By the Deed" is a completely self-contained story, "Black, White, and Red" is a series of short stories that build on and add greater depth to many of the characters in the former.

While I don't really think you'd need to read "Devil By the Deed" first, I think it would really give you the big-picture of the relationship between the characters and the context in which each of the short stories take place in. You should be able to find "Devil by the Deed" for around ..., so it couldn't hurt to pick it up at least in addition to "Black, White, and Red".

The first story in the TPB is "Devil's Advocate". I liked it so much I was really excited about the rest of the stories. Only later did I find out that it had in fact won an Eisner Award in 1999 for Best Short Story. While the rest of the stories are good, they pale in comparison to "Devil's Advocate". If nothing else you should pick up "Black, White, and Red" #1 just so you can read the first story in the TPB. Depending on how much you like the other material, you can pick up the entire series.

Rating:
Summary: My Second Grendel Book
Review: This was the second of Wagner's works on Grendel that I picked up, the first being Devil By the Deed. Out of the two I'd have to say I preferred "Devil By the Deed". While "Devil By the Deed" is a completely self-contained story, "Black, White, and Red" is a series of short stories that build on and add greater depth to many of the characters in the former.

While I don't really think you'd need to read "Devil By the Deed" first, I think it would really give you the big-picture of the relationship between the characters and the context in which each of the short stories take place in. You should be able to find "Devil by the Deed" for around ..., so it couldn't hurt to pick it up at least in addition to "Black, White, and Red".

The first story in the TPB is "Devil's Advocate". I liked it so much I was really excited about the rest of the stories. Only later did I find out that it had in fact won an Eisner Award in 1999 for Best Short Story. While the rest of the stories are good, they pale in comparison to "Devil's Advocate". If nothing else you should pick up "Black, White, and Red" #1 just so you can read the first story in the TPB. Depending on how much you like the other material, you can pick up the entire series.