Sláine fans? The Cattle Raid of Cooley webcomic!

[paddybrown]

As PJ has already been by to plug his new comic for the Star Trek communicator, I thought it wouldn't be out of place to tell you about my rather lower-tech webcomic.

The Cattle Raid of Cooley, an adaptation of the ancient Irish epic Táin Bó Cúailnge, is serialised at a rate of a page a week and started three weeks ago. Its hero is Cú Chulainn, who partly inspired Sláine, and has to defend Ulster single-handedly (charioteers don't count as people, apparently) when Queen Medb of Connacht turns up mob-handed to steal Donn of Cooley, Ulster's prize stud bull. Watching and occasionally interfering are the gods, including the Morrígan, goddess of carnage (below).



Visit the website every Wednesday, or subscribe to the rss feed. There's also a prequel, The Ulster Cycle: Ness, which follows the adventures of Cú Chulainn's grandmother when she was young. Enjoy!

Patrick
(And yes, it is drawn in red biro. You want to make something of it?)

[TordelBack]

Top stuff squire, and your political meanderings get the blood boiling in a most stimulating way.

[Dark Jimbo]

Soon as Thyrllseeker finds this thread you'll be gold - a fan for life.

[maryanddavid]

Great stuff, I was driving through Cruachan on Sunday, and was telling the kid of the 'pillow talk'.
Not a great one for Web  comics,  but Ness is great and will buy the collection when it comes out.

If you want I have the address for the library suppliers in Ireland, they love collections done by by Irish Creators, If you interested drop me a line.

Really like the art, reminds me of Eddie Cambell.  There are other collections from Clo Maigh Eo,an Tóraíocht agus an Tain, and another on St patrick, which I cant lay my hands on to give the title. The art is by the Cartoon Saloon. worth checking out.

Cheers

David

[paddybrown]

Thanks David. Eddie Campbell was certainly a big influence. I have the Cló Mhaigh Eo books, but I'm afraid my Gaeilge isn't yet strong enough to really appreciate them. They do look great. They have two books on St Patrick - An Sclábhai ("the slave") about his youth, and An Teachtaire ("the messenger") about his mission. Their Táin is a little too condensed, I think - mine will be much longer, long enough to let the characters and story breathe I hope.

I made a deliberate decision to leave the pillow talk prologue bit out of my version. It tends to overwhelm modern retellings - in the Clo Mhaigh Eo version it's fully a quarter of the book - but it's a late addition, a high medieval courtly comedy that, I believe, is out of keeping with the original core of the Táin. I made several attempts at including it, but reluctantly decided it suited my intentions better to start where the early version starts - with the gathering of the army at Cruachan. An odd choice perhaps, but posterity will vindicate me

Patrick

[TordelBack]

I made a deliberate decision to leave the pillow talk prologue bit out of my version. It tends to overwhelm modern retellings

Probably a wise move.  I actually enjoy that bit a lot, but as you say it can totally take over.  I saw an excellent stage production of The Tain where more-or-less the entire tale played out on giant patchwork duvet (nicely embroidered with landscape motifs, fields, lakes, sheep etc)., with Ailill and Maedbh tucked up under it.  Brilliant, but very much placing the story in a later context.  It distracts from the core of the thing, which for me (as a Kinsella and Horslips fan) comes down to Ferdia and Cúchulain and the ford.  Much as I adore the incredible Age of Bronze, the story feels at its most strained when Shanower tries to incorporate medieval and even Shakespearean additions into what is otherwise a very historical take on Troy.  

Have you read Kenneth Jackson's venerable-but-still-interesting "The Oldest Irish Tradition"?.  He makes a good fist of tying the threads of the unadorned story onto (the 1960's version of) the Irish Iron Age, and it's very quick read.  More up to date but somewhat drier fare lurks in the pages of Emania, of course.

[paddybrown]

Aye, I've read Jackson, and quite a lot of other scholarship, some of it more reasonable than others. I have my own ideas as to what the "original" version of the Táin might have been like, but I'm not doing that as the comic.

For me the core of the story is the relationships between Cú Chulainn, Fergus, Medb, and to a lesser extent Ailill, with Conchobar kind of hanging over proceedings in his absence. Fer Diad is also a late addition, but one that's in keeping with the version I want to tell, so he stays. But he does sort of show up from nowhere immediately before the fight as Cú Chulainn's best friend forever, and is then forgotten immediately after, so I'm having to do a bit of work to integrate him better.

[maryanddavid]

Isint Deidre of the Sorrows the 'prologue' of sorts to the Tain?  Its a looong time since I read the Tain and  the Sorrows.

Wasent the reason that Fergus and Ferdia were in Connaught, due to the treachery of Conner and the Death of Naoise. Ferdia had a part in this story. Mayby im missing the point!

On an aside I love to point landmarks to the kids, and be able to tell them stories like the pillow talk.
We were in Belmullet for the big fair day on the 15th of august, and I showed them the broadhaven bay were The Children of Lir spent 300 years.

Cheers

David

[paddybrown]

Is there a version of the Deirdre story that has Fer Diad in it? He's not in the versions I have. Maybe a later writer has included him to better integrate him.

Anyway, keep telling the stories. We've got one the best bodies of mythology in the world, and it deserves to be better known.