Slaine: Treasures of Britain

[TordelBack]

Hurrah, finally got hold of a copy!

This was a serious treat.  I think I'd only ever read the first episode before, so it was basically an all-new Slaine story as far as I was concerned - two, if you count the rather charming Steve Tappin musical number that serves as a interlude.  Now there's a reason for this - I hated Slaine's time-travelling adventures at the time, and however much I could buy into him bashing Romans, I drew the line at Robin Hood and King Arthur never mind William-bloody-Wallace.  However, this time out I was wrong.  Pat has an awful lot to say about the Arthurian tales and how they play into his unique take on Celtic mytholoogy - and to my surprise it really works.

In answer to Glassstanley's niggle about the 13 Treasures, Pat tells us about the first five right at the start - they are the four sacred items of the Horned God (Sword, Spear, Cauldron, Stone = 4), which Slaine already spent a couple of volumes assembling back before the Flood, plus Arthur's Siege Perilous (5) wot he is sat upon. 

Of the remaining seven: Merlin's Cloak of Invisibility (6) is found at Stonehenge in the first episode; Morgaine also gives Slaine the Helmet of the Green Knight (7); the Chessboard  (8) he gets from Lancelot; the Mirror (9) he gets from Guinivere; the Pavilion (10) from Peredur; the Tusk (11) Ukko gets from the King of the Orcs; the Blood of the Sorceress (12) he gets from Arthur (and, I suppose, Merlin too); and finally the Ring (13) from Morgaine. 

With the exception of the last (which just sort of appears), it seems very well planned out: each of the major characters is attached to the quest for a particular treasure, and their story/nature explored during the chase.  However, I'd agree that the story stops about one or two episodes too soon, as discussed further below.

Dermot draws some fantastic pages, his faces and half-page portraits in particular are just superb, and his designs for Arthur from young boy to a very original-looking warrior king to brooding/catatonic king under the mountain are probably the single standout success of the story.  As always with the painted years everything feels very static, particularly combat, and there are virtually no backgrounds, and those there are can be rather odd. 

There are other  problems - Hengwulf's appearance is very inconsistent, even when he's not changing into  a dragon, and there are far, far too many pages spent on Slaine pointlessly rucking with Dermot's idiosyncratic Guledig (I'm a Pugh man all the way when it comes to Cythrons), to the detriment of space available for the rest of the fighting in the story.  The design for the King of the Orcs is bizarre, and not really in a good way, but there's no denying he's drawn well.
     
On balance I think that storywise this is the strongest of Slaine's time-warrior stories to be collected so far, in that it's coherent and not particularly preachy.  That said, I have a few niggles of my own. The constant references to women as 'frigid' (not to mention 'cold' and 'controlling') feels as awkwardly offensive and dated as some of the dialogue in Darkie's Mob, even if it is because they're possessed by Cythrons. 

And finally, there's no attempt to square this Merlin with the 'swineherd' Myrddin of Time Killer - or indeed to explain or explore this Merlin at all. I can't help thinking that this is why the end feels a bit abrupt - I suspect that the quest of the Ring would have been the opportunity to cover this ground, but the

A very good addition to the Slaine collection - shame about the rather generic cover, which while an enlarged panel actually has nothing to do with the story at all.

[TordelBack]

That's be the edited version there in the bloody quotes.

[JOE SOAP]

It's my favourite re-telling of the Arthurian myth.

[Dark Jimbo]

Good stuff Tordels - I always planned to stop my Slaine collection with Horned God, and simply add Books of Invasions at the end as the only 'necessary' Slaine stories (and where are the paperback versions of those, by the way?) - but the time travelling era seems to be going down better with squaxx than anyone expected it to. I'm sorely tempted to just bite the bullet and get them all.

[locustsofdeath!]

Clint Langely's art for Lord of Misrule is some of the best work to ever grace the prog, imo. I reread that arc now and then just to take in all the wonderful detail he put into it.

[Dark Jimbo]

As with Dredd, Strontium Dog, Nemesis, all the stuff in the TPBs is new to me - I didn't join the Good Ship Tharg until 2001 - so I tend to use fan opinion as a barometer of quality for things I haven't read. For years I heard about how dire the time-travel era was... until the graphic novels hit that era, interestingly, then opinion seemed to become a wee bit more favourable. Could it be that it seemed worse than it was because it was surrounded by so much dross in the prog at the time..?

[ThryllSeekyr]

Just got mine today and after a quick flick through was wondering if Cloak of Fear should really be in the middle?

[TordelBack]

Yeah, I agree that Cloak of Fear does seem out of place, but at the start of the story Ukko reports that he has just finished writing the first book of Treasures of Britain and is taking a break.  It also introduces the idea of Ukko as a medieval Fool, which features later in the main story.

Presumably it was commissioned to give Dermot Power more of a break, or to make the break between books seem shorter, and while not quite up there with Great Unce Baal's skeletons I thought it was one of Pat's better 'musicals'.  Nice to see Murdach again too.