Dante - An Appreciation

[GermanAndy]

I never really knew what to make of Dante, as an relative latecommer to 2000AD (Prog 1236) the first Dante I read was "Fiends", which I guess wasn?t the best introduction.

I was missing so much back-story that it hurt the tales. Not that the storys were bad or that I didn?t like the art, but for a lot of the stuff I just couldn?t connect the necessary dots.

A couple of weeks ago I bought David Bishop?s novel. And suddenly it made click.

Bishop?s novels are frankly hit and miss for me, but this one was very good. It was a great introduction into Dante?s world and put a lot of the comic work into perspective. He really nailed the character and managed to work the huge back-story rather seamlessly into the tale.

After finishing this I had to have the DC collection to read the origin first hand.

This was so good that I sat down and re-read the whole Dante stuff in the progs.

Overnight I became a fan. (Even if I couldn?t decide which artist is better, Frazer or Burns :-) )

And I came to wonder how much one is prone with an long epic like this to dismiss stuff as boring or not very interesting. The whole mom-stuff in the last progs was suddenly much more interesting; it made sense for Dante to care for the two youngsters so much that he is willing to betray his mom, nuances like not promising the dying Margueritte to protect her und such things got a new dimension. Or the rather steep difference between the womanizing rogue and the scarred and bitter war-veteran, which I alsways found a bit jarring till now.

I guess this a problem for a lot of long runing epics and of course their setting. To be immersed in Dredd?s world is rather easy, with characters like Strontium Dog or Rogue Trooper you have to work a bit, if the the characters dind?t sweep you off your feet at first reading.

Or, as in this case, with Dante.

Now I am looking forward to the next tale, which makes the progs again a little bit more interesting than usual.

[davidbishop]

My work here is done!

davidbishop

[Steamboy]

Get hold of the GN's that are coming out if u want more history, most of the pre Tsar Wars character building stuff is pretty awsome and Simons Fraser's artwork outstanding, personal fav Dante story of mine, The Gulag Apocalypse(think thats the arc), the one where we discover where the Romanovs get their Weapons Crest tech from. "Whatever you do, don't eat the yellow snow"

CU Krestel

[Steamboy]

To arc this thread up a bit why don't people mention they're fav Dante stories, line, supporting characters etc.
Glad to hear Dante strip is getting back to its old quality(judging from comments in the latest review thread anyway) really did just tread water after the Tsar Wars.

CU Krestel

[Jared Katooie]

I think Dante has vever been as good as he was in The courtship of Jena Makarov. That was a spectacular story. My favourite supporting character was Viktor (naturally). A shame he was disposed of so casually.

[The Monarch]

I liked Andreas damn that robbie morrison for making you care for the characters before offing them