Eerie Presents: El Cid

by Budd Lewis, Gonzalo Mayo (Illustrator), Gerry Boudreau

Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar - also known to historians as El Cid - was an eleventh-century Spanish military commander who led both Christians and Moors into battle. In the pages of Eerie magazine, however, writer Budd Lewis and artist Gonzalo Mayo transform El Cid into a larger-than-life fantasy warrior, battling dragons, trolls, and sirens for his life - and demons for his soul! This deluxe hardcover collects every El Cid adventure that ran in Warren Publishing's Eerie magazine in the mid-1970s, featuring the elaborately detailed artwork of Mayo and the high fantasy storytelling of Lewis!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy

92 pages, Hardcover

First published January 8, 2013

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fantastical adventures of the historical El Cid. The art is exquisite and detailed but at reduced print size it can be confusing and overwhelming to the eye. The writing is definitely in high fantasy romantic mode and a little disjointed at times. Sometimes it reads more like an illustrated novel than sequential art. An interesting slice of 1970s phantasmagoria.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection. This volume collects all of the "El Cid" stories from Eerie magazine. This El Cid is part Conan, part Sinbad and part Hercules. Overall an entertaining collection with plenty of monsters and sorcerors. The character was of course based on the actual El Cid, but in no way are these tales meant to be historically accurate. Instead it's a far-out journey that fit right in with some of the black and white comics of the 1970s.

The art is great as well, although at times gets a bit abstract.

Overall if you read any of the sword-and-sorcery comics of the 1970s, you'll probably enjoy this volume.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection was interesting as a snap shot of pop culture at a certain time. The stories are so-so and have pretty much nothing to do with El Cid than the name but the trippy beyond belief artwork was more 1970s than a black-lit crushed-velvet poster of Frank Frazetta's Molly Hatchet album cover sold at Spencer's Gifts.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disclaimer: Read via Netgalley

I guess I am the wrong type of audience for this comic book, sorry graphic novel. This edition collects the El Cid stories that ran in Eerie magazine. In the 1970s, and, boy, can you tell that the comic ran in the 1970s.

I found the black and white illustrations to be far more compelling than the actually story lines. Perhaps this is because El Cid has a tendency to refer to women as his nymphs as opposed to actually acknowledging that women might have names. Quite frankly, I find the phrase delicate entrails to be a trend, well, irregular.

And I guess that is the problem that the modern women reader will have with this graphic novel. The female characters look alike with little clothes, strong thighs, and heavenly beasts. The Cid, who was known for his piety at least in legend, is little more than James Bond without the gadgets and wearing a cross instead of suits.

The best story, to my mind, is the first which is a version of Three Billy Goats Gruff, but the Cid in that version is radically different from the character that appeals in the other stories. The first story is also darker in terms of emotion, despite the fact that the Cid is the traditional knight and lack nymphs in this one. It has to do with tolls and cost, and possess a sense of humor that is not found in the other stories. In the later stories he is Conan, but by another name. I suppose that is fine, but it doesn’t work for me.

In terms of a curiosity as possessed by the reader, and in terms of artwork, this graphic novel is worth looking at. If you love those fantasy and science fiction women that have been their way into so many illustrations you will like this as well. But I can see why this succeed in the 70s, and not so much today. In terms of development of a genre, it is worth reading. The art is stunning at times.

The plot fails because it feels like the Cid realizes he is being a stand in for another type of character. This is not the movie with Sofia Loren and Charlton Hesston. It is pulp. Which in and of itself isn’t bad, but is an acquired taste.

[Alex Sarll]

I picked this up mainly for the cover, wondering how the blazes they'd got from chivalric hero el Cid to a Viking about to tussle with a cephalopod (though obviously Cid Versus Squid has a certain intrinsic appeal). Turns out it's a different artist to anything inside, drawing a character with no resemblance to anyone here, so I have no idea why they used it, but I suppose it did its job. Because, yes, the stories inside are set in a recognisable though more fantastical version of mediaeval Spain – not exactly historically accurate, but certainly no further afield than the average Arthurian legend from our own confirmed Middle Ages, and often even downplaying the most unearthly elements as a final twist. The cover's biggest difference to the contents, though, is all that space; interior artist Gonzalo Mayo seems to fear that if he hasn't packed absolutely every square millimetre of a panel with ominous architecture, monsters and titties, then he's going to get the boot for slacking. And I'm a big fan of all of those things, not to mention intricacy in art as a general principle, but there are limits, and sometimes it would have been nice if he'd just picked the six or ten most important components of a given image and let them breathe a little. Still, that sense of Mucha and Bernie Wrightson competing to fill the same space does lend a decaying Clark Ashton Smith grandeur to stories which, more flatly drawn, could easily have felt like someone trying to turn Prince Valiant into the new Conan – especially as the none-more-purple scripts teeter from simply overwrought into frequent misplaced words and misspellings, even extending to the likes of 'villian', which you'd have thought was one of the absolute basics in this line of work. An oddity, but an enjoyable one.

[Christian Duckworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, much too short. Odd fantasy take on a real historical figure.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's too bad when a book has such beautiful line art, but so many other things mar the reading experience. First of all, starting with the art itself. Extremely detailed, little tiny lines that have so much detail that the eye doesn't know where to go. This may have been fixed with grey tones or washes, but that didn't happen. Big action scenes crammed into small panels, just not technically set up right.

Next problem would be the story. All the stories have a classic feel. But the author chose to interchange between a first-person narration and an impersonal third-person narrator. So confusing when you are trying to follow along. None of the stories are really that gripping or interesting. This was a cool time for Creepy magazine, as they were moving away from straight horror and trying out dark fantasy. But this was not their best. This collection is nice for fans of the original material, but I don't know who else would appreciate it.

[Rex Hurst · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several mythical adventures of the historical figure El Cid, the 9th Century Spanish Warlord. While the stories take place in that period of history and often mention the fight between the forces of Christian Aragon versus the Moors, each one has a supernatural element placed in it. These are collected from the old horror magazine Eerie from the 1970s. The writing is fine, but the artwork makes this collection stand out. A must for people who fondly remember this old series.

[Beluosus · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art is gorgeously baroque, but the sexism is overblown even by 1970s standards. The women don't speak (seriously, two of them get a single speech bubble each -- that's it for the whole book) and tend to die if they display any agency.

[Troy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Artwork was so detailed but somewhat blurry in the black and white spectrum. Hard to follow the story.

[Jesse A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good 'of its era' story. Art was a little muddy.

[Artur Coelho · Rating 4 out of 5]

À parte a referência à gesta de cavalaria que mitificou o El Cid histórico, este El Cid esplendorosamente desenhado pelo peruano Gonzalo Mayo e com argumentos de Bud Lewis tem pouco a ver com o original. El Cid é um personagem da Warren Publishing, editora da Eerie, Creepy e Vampirella ícones marcantes dos comics que por adoptarem um formato de revista escapavam às convenções do comic e por isso podia safar-se a publicar banda desenhada de terror profundo, violento e sensual. A Warren é particularmente notável pela aposta num estilo individual facilmente identificável pelo traço barroco em tons góticos de preto e branco de fortes contrastes, atmosferas soturnas, decadência gráfica com toque de psicadelismo e um exagero esteticamente apelativo.

É a ilustração que destaca este El Cid, criado em 1975 como resposta à moda das histórias de sword and sorcery - vide Conan e Kull na Marvel, Sword and Sorcery na DC, exemplos de uma galeria de bárbaros e aventureiros de coragem e espada afiada, quase todos caídos no esquecimento. As histórias curtas de aventuras improváveis, violentas refregas, ameaças ocultas, terrores tenebrosos e mulheres sensuais que funcionam como argumento ficaram facilmente datadas, legíveis pelo que são, retrato da ficção pulp de uma época. Já a ilustração, apesar de também datada, destaca-se pela intensa espectacularidade gráfica. Cada enquadramento é um assalto aos nervos ópticos, uma delícia de poses icónicas e traços intricados que transbordam os limites da vinheta. Uma explosão gráfica de um estilo gótico elaborado muito em voga nos anos 70, pela mão de Gonzalo Mayo.

[Michael Norwitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of the 'El Cid' stories from Eerie magazines of the 1970s presenting the character in a sword & sorcery vein (with its commonly associated sexism). The art is lovely if not the clearest in communicating an actual story, and far too many adventures involve the protagonist being lost in some sort of hallucination. Still it's a fun read for anyone with fond memories of comics of the era and I appreciate Dark Horse's collections of series as a complement to their sequential collections.

[MB Taylor · Rating 1 out of 5]

I bought this because I remembered the character from the original magazines from the mid-70s, or at least I remembered enjoying the art. Either my tastes have changed or I was misremembering. Quite possibly I was thinking of the art of Esteban Maroto.

The writing in El Cid was OK, and some of the art was nice, but neither really drew me in. A waste of $16 and worse, an hour of reading time...