GOING ON A COMIC BOOK ODY-C
How Christian Ward and writer Matt Fraction turned Homer’s epic tale on its head…
Before winning the Eisner for Black Bolt, Christian Ward was best known for his work with writer Matt Fraction on Ody-c, a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey. This epic poem, written in eighth century Greece, tells of the adventures of Odysseus and his 10-year journey to return home after the Trojan War.
Here, the artist set out to depict a story taking place in a strange and intangible place, but one that would still have rules and conventions to ground the narrative and visuals. As Odyssia travels back from fighting in an intergalactic war, she encounters various challenges along the way. All the while, she’s watched over by the gods, who exist outside of her realm and look down on her. It’s the gods who narrate the story, while the characters in Odyssia’s world don’t talk. Like Grant Morrison, the creators create a different perspective for the narrative to flow through.
Visually, it thrives on Christian’s painterly style. “We knew we wanted it to be psychedelic and trippy,” he says. “I was looking at Alexander Mcqueen – the really bizarre creations he put on the catwalk – and the fetish art and HR Giger.”
In the beginning, the idea was to change the gender of all the characters, but in the end they decided to include a full range of gender identities. “I loved the idea that there would be a full spectrum of colour, visually, and then in a way the gender aspects also reflect a full spectrum. So regardless of the reader’s gender, there was something in it for them. No one would be excluded.”