Grendel: Red, White, & Black

Grendel #11

by Matt Wagner, Michael Avon Oeming (Illustrator), Phil Noto (Illustrator)

Dark Horse is proud to present this second Grendel anthology. Each story is a vignette of the devious misdeeds of Hunter Rose, the first incarnation of Grendel. The Grendel tales are illustrated in stark black, white, and blood red by some of the top talents in comics, including Jill Thompson (Scary Godmother), Michael Avon Oeming (Powers), Darick Robertson (Transmetropolitan), Kelley Jones (Sandman), Andi Watson (Geisha), Dan Brereton (The Nocturnals), Phil Noto (Birds of Prey), Zander Cannon (Top Ten), Andy Kuhn (Firebreather), Ashley Wood (popbot), Jim Mahfood (Grrl Scouts), Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), Tom Fowler (Caper), Mike Huddleston (Harley Quinn), Cliff Chiang (Detective Comics), John K. Snyder ( God and the Devil), Michael Zulli (Creatures of the Night), and Phil Hester & Ande Parks (Green Arrow), and more, including a seldom seen Grendel story drawn by Matt Wagner himself! Rivals to Grendel's mob employer, the Ciccone family, never expected to deal with the Devil himself!

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Crime, Comic Book, Fiction, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics

200 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2005

About the author

Matt Wagner is an American comic book writer and artist. In addition to his creator-owned series' Mage and Grendel, he has also worked on comics featuring The Demon and Batman as well as such titles as Sandman Mystery Theatre and Trinity, a DC Comics limited series featuring Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a pretty impressive list of artists involved in these vignettes of original Grendel, Hunter Rose. Wagner writes stories that play to each artist's strength like having Jill Thompson recap Grendel's tale as a childrens book.



Or having Kelley Jones draw up a horror story featuring Argent.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jill Thompson, Cliff Chiang, Andy Kuhn, Mike Hawthorne, Tom Fowler, Andi Watson, Jim Mahfood, Kelley Jones, Phil Hester, Michael Avon Oeming, Farel Dalrymple, Stan Sakai, Zander Cannon, Mike Huddleston, Darick Robertson, John K Snyder III, Phil Noto, Dan Brereton, Michael Zulli & Ashley Wood - LOOK AT THE ROSTER OF ARTISTS WHO CONTRIBUTED TO THIS BOOK!

Seriously, those are some pretty damn impressive names, and better yet is how Matt Wagner tailors each story to their strengths - Jill Thompson's children's storybook, Phil Noto's half-page illos with accompanying prose, the lush verbiage and garden setting of Michael Zulli's final Hunter Rose sequence.

Wagner does a great job really getting into the seediness of Grendel's world, full of twisted, unpredictably excessive and selfish men and women- the cursing, prejudices and greed make you want to shower after finishing the book.

Just when I think that Wagner has plumbed Hunter Rose for all that he can, he proves me wrong.

[Jefferson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice collection of pieces that fill in the gaps and add a little depth to the early chapters of the Grendel saga.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

In comics, Matt Wagner's Grendel (for those of you who foolishly think that he lives solely in epic poetry) is a sort of devil-spirit of aggression that takes many forms over many time periods, but begins as the masked alter-ego of novelist Hunter Rose in 1980's New York City. "Grendel" is, therefore, a straightforward superhero tale except that we follow (and root for) the villain, while the "hero" (a justice-serving but bloodthirsty werewolf named Argent) is left at the periphery of the story. "Red, White and Black" (and its counterpart, "Black, White and Red") may not be the best entrance point for newcomers to the somewhat complicated mythos Wagner has constructed, but it's probably not the worst either. This is a collection of short Grendel stories illustrated by a variety of very talented artists, with all the tales written by Wagner. A lot of the artists Wagner has called upon in the past to draw his creation were, in my mind, questionable choices at best -- especially since the author himself can outdraw most anybody. But this collection raises the bar, with work from Darick Robertson, Jill Thompson, Stan Sakai and Michael Zulli to name a few.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps my favorite villian of all time...

[Txisko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Primer acercamiento a este personaje, y no me acabo de enterar de algunas cosas. Supongo que en algún comic anterior se explica el porqué de sus habilidades dignas de Batman o Spiderman, o la razón de su relación con el lobo, o lo de su hija adoptada, o ese supuesto terror este infunde y que no se ve una razón real para ello. Vamos, suspensión de incredulidad a tomar por saco.
El diálogo a veces resulta muy forzado, por ejemplo por el uso de tacos e insultos que resultan muy poco naturales. Meter un taco en un momento dado, y que quede bien, tiene su arte. A eso se añade algún texto que se pasa de trascendental, resultando casi incomprensible para alguien como yo, que acaba de aterrizar en el cómic (Panegírico).
Dibujo de todos los estilos, mejores (Fowler, Thomson, Jones) y peores (Sakai, Cannon), limpios (Warner, Notto) y otros que (de recargados) quedan sucios (Zulli).

[James DeSantis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was a little more uneven than the last.

A few weaker stories, one big one was a 7 part random storylines that had very little to do with Grendel for me. But I did enjoy that they gave a lot more focus on Wolfy and Stacy. Got to know them more and see their part in Grendel's overall life that worked well.

Art sometimes amazing, sometimes weak, but overall solid.

A 3.5 out of 5.

[Hugo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another batch of short tales, many of them beginning to seem superfluous to the main narrative (some, basically extended chase sequences, are literally irrelevant), but with some gems, including Hunter Rose's final moments and those detailing the life of Stacy Palumbo, and living mostly due to the strengths of the artists involved, with some of them—Zulli, Jones, and Snyder, especially—producing superlative work.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really don’t know what to think about this comic - I’ve read Wagner’s mystery theatre and loved it but this just is odd.

The Grendel antihero is Disconcerting and dark - that I liked! But also disjointed and sporadic.

So I suppose some of these shorts are 2 stars and some 3.

Artwork, some is brill but some just aggravating.

[Roberto Diaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Matt Wagner y un equipo estelar de artistas cuentan el mito de Hunter Rose y Grendel a través de diferentes puntos de vista dentro del mundo en el ue este habita.

Una lectura que se puede sentir densa por los temas y estilos con los cuales experimentan, pero recomendada sin duda.

[Shikhar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I could bestow upon it fifteen (or more) stars, for it is imminently deserving of so much more of the meager 5 available.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost 30 years ago, Matt Wagner published his first stories featuring Hunter Rose, a young socialite who was secretly a criminal mastermind and fearsome costumed assassin known as Grendel.

In the initial series, Rose died at the hands of Argent, a werewolf fighting on the side of the law. Wagner has continued to produce Grendel, however, mostly by depicting future versions of the character, who comes, over the centuries, to be recognized as the incarnation of sheer evil.

Other episodes revisit Rose's stint as the first to wear the mask.

This book gathers 23 interconnected stories that retell Rose's life and death, all written by Wagner and illustrated by various artists in black-and-white with occasional blood-red accents.

Wagner's collaborators include Kelley Jones, Jill Thompson, and Michael Zulli, all known for their work on Sandman.

Grendel fans may best appreciate this alternative view of the story that started it all, but the collection affords new readers opportunity to experience the Hunter Rose saga in a single volume, rendered by an enjoyable diversity of talented illustrators

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in the use of different artists for all the stories. The various takes were interesting and as a result, obviously some were much more interesting than others. The art is pretty great in some of it. And I do like the consistency of red, black, and white throughout. Sometimes it gets to be a little too much of the same when it is just multiple action sequences after another and not the development of story necessarily--but maybe you shouldn't read it in one sitting like I did. I dug it though and will read another. Plus, I like that it's in real NY---not a Gotham NY or any other faux NYC metropolis. Plus, one story came suggests an 'unofficial soundtrack' which is pretty dope.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately the whole Black, White & Red idea has gotten pretty stale by this point. Most of the stories in here are dull bits of crime. Others reiterate historical points from “Devil by the Deed”, but they don’t add much to those stories. Worse, some go totally artsy-fartsy in an attempt to generate interest. The biggest problem with these historical stories is that they don't really tell us anything new, and they make it feel like there are no new stories of Hunter Rose. With that all said, there were a couple of stories that I liked in this volume before I got thoroughly bored. "Devil's Week", with art by Matt Wagner, nicely recalls Devil by The Deed. "Chase the Devil" nicely reminds you just how evil Hunter Rose was.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crazy quilt of dark, acrobatic violence, each story with a different artist. The ambition is admirable but it is probably too disjointed.