Epicurus The Sage [2003] (Random Comics Theatre)

Random Comics Theatre

Epicurus The Sage [2003]

This is a compete collection of Epicurus The Sage stories by William Messner-Loebs and Sam Kieth, previously published as two books in 1989 and 1991, a short 1993 anthology story in FAST FORWARD #3 and a fourth story, new to this volume. The original books were published by Piranha Press, DC's short lived creator-owned imprint (1989 to, just barely, 1994, with only a handful of publications after 1992). This book is published by Cliffhanger, an imprint of Wildstorm, by this time an imprint of DC after it was an imprint of Image.

At the time of the first book Messner-Loebs was mostly working as a writer, in the middle of his run of FLASH, and just off a well-regarded run on JONNY QUEST, although a few years earlier he was best known as an artist, on his own book JOURNEY and also on Michael T. Gilbert's MR. MONSTER.  Kieth had just made a splash with the SANDMAN series he co-created with Mike Dringenberg and Neil Gaiman, leaving that after five issues. He'd soon be doing some popular things over at Marvel before he and Messner-Loebs would re-unite to considerable success over on Kieth's THE MAXX series.

But back to this book, it's the tale of the philosopher Epicurus, living in Athens and trying to establish himself among other better known philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (yes, the dates don't match up). This ahistorical version of Ancient Greece winds up being meddled with by the Gods of Olympus, who appear to be even more foolish and, with their powers, dangerous than the mortals. Epicurus, his best friend Plato and young Alexander the Great (who they wind up taking care of) do their best to sort things out.

 

I was nineteen, just the right age to be a mark for the Piranha line, and had been reading SANDMAN from the start and enjoyed Kieth's work there, and liked some of Messner-Loebs work (can't recall offhand what I read before this and what after), so the first book ("Visiting Hades") was a surprisingly easy buy for me, even at $10 at a time when many comics I bought were still $1. Didn't regret it for a minute, loved that first book from the first page, read it over and over. And a year later I took a philosophy course and actually understood even more of the jokes.

Happy to report that it still holds up, though to be honest it's only been a year or so since I last read it, and it's never been more than three years between readings.

The second book ("The Many Loves Of Zeus"), well, after that almost sure to be a let-down, and it was, but still enjoyable.  Kieth's art is starting to get really out there, into a style which served him well, and the story has a bit less focus, but I still liked it.

I didn't get FAST FORWARD when it came out (don't recall even seeing it, but I got it since), so that story  ("Riding The Sun") was  new to me. It's in black and white, and looks great. It stretches the anachronisms even further, if possible, with our heroes meeting Homer. Really liked this one, Kieth's art is a bit more like the first book, and it's a solid story.

The final story ("Helen's Boys") is new to this book, over a decade later (though I'm not clear on when it was done, feels like it might have at least been started closer to the first two books, maybe abandoned and finished later, but that's just speculation). It's a bit of a muddle, re-telling bits of the story of the Trojan War through a Messner-Loebs/Kieth lens before dealing with the aftermath while Epicurus, Plato and Alexander flee Athens after Socrates is killed.  Yeah, the timeline is well and truly busted by now. If there's ever a fifth story I'm sure they'll meet Immanuel Kant...

I liked bits, I can see the bones of a good story, at least as good as the second book, in here, but it doesn't come together in the end. If it was an abandoned third book it's nine pages shorter than the first two, which might have helped flesh it out.

Anyway, on balance, the first and third stories are really great, and the other two have their moments, even if they suffer by comparison to the company they keep.