I need recommendations: Medieval fantasy & historical fiction

Son0vagun

Can anyone suggest a medieval type fantasy comic? Not Game of Thrones but similar. Or even historical fictional type comic?

Fysh

For medieval fantasy, Demon Knights is an easy fit from DC's current monthly publishing crop. The first 7-issue storyline has been collected and released in a trade paperback recently too.

Historical fiction is a bit of a weirder one, as it depends when you're interested in. Warrel Ellis' Crecy is a decent place to start, though.

number66

Never mind

Son0vagun

Thanks Fysh. I'll check them out.

Nevermind?

Fysh

For historical fiction, Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell's "From Hell" is worth a look too (don't let the film adaptation put you off, it was pretty badly done). The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen books may be of interest too, though they're more historical fantasy - they happen in a world where every fantasy story in any medium actually happened so for example you get H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain meeting Bram Stoker's Mina Harker, Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde, and H. G. Wells' Griffin the invisible man.

Fuzz McG

Warren Ellis' Crecy is a good recommendation.



Northlanders might be right up your street. It finished up last year so the whole thing can be read in about seven (?) trades. Not sure how much fantasy is in there but plenty of blood and guts and Vikings!



Neil Gaimain's 1602 is decent too. A sort of medieval re-telling of the Marvel universe. Stay away from the sequels though. Only the Gaiman stuff is worth reading.



There's a series called Age of Bronze which centres around the Trojan War and Greek mythology.



There's also some well-known manga series like Lone Wolf and Cub and Blade of the Immortal which are great!




EDIT: Oh! And the new Conan series by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan/James Harren is definitely worth a look too!

MarkHall

The tales varies form trade to trade. But so far I've enjoyed most of them.

In the first arc, "Sven the Returned," (issues #1-8) we follow the protagonist Sven, a self-exiled Viking warrior serving in the Byzantine Varangian Guard, as he returns (in A.D. 980) to his birth region in the Orkney Islands in order to reclaim his rightful inheritance.
The second arc, "Lindisfarne," (issues #9-10) is about a young boy and the sacking of the Lindisfarne monastery in A.D. 793, the beginning of the Viking Age.
The third arc, "The Cross + The Hammer," (issues #11-16) is set around Dublin, Ireland circa the Battle of Clontarf (A.D. 1014), and follows the chase of an Irishman who attacks the occupying Viking forces using guerrilla tactics. He also accompanies his daughter Brigid while on the run.

Patrick Brown

I'd very much second Age of Bronze, possibly my favourite comic currently published in English, and Northlanders is good too - the first arc isn't great, but it really gets going after that. It's remiscent of contemporary crime drama - everybody's on the make.

Of course, I can't see a subject like this without feeling the need to plug my own webcomic, The Cattle Raid of Cooley, based on the Irish epic Táin Bó Cúailnge. I'm trying to be as historically authentic as I can, and to adapt it as a piece of fiction rather than retell it as a piece of heritage. 171 pages so far. Here's a recent page:



There are six print issues you can order as well, although I only got issue 6 printed for the zine fair last weekend and haven't got round to updating the bookshop page.

Ring4Fea

The story that never happened because they wanted an Ernie Chan/Arnie Schwarzenegger style Bran Mak Morn., decades before anything halfway 'authentic' was allowed by Dark Horse/Mike Richardson.