Mythomahos: 1821 - A Blessing and a Curse
Mythomahos (loosely translated in English as "Legend Warrior") is a Greek comic written by Haris Gioulatos in collaboration with Yannis Rubulias (also known as Rubus) and drawn by Rubus. The story takes place in Greece, during the late Ottoman occupation era, in late 1820 and early 1821, right before the Greek War of Independence. The story follows Demir, a high ranking captain of the Ottoman military, who works very closely with the Sultan. One night he meets Aris, a Legend Warrior who is trying to save a child from goblins. He doesn't believe him and he takes him to the Sultan, who orders him to bring him the goblin's head, if he's telling the truth. Aris and Demir go together, alongside some Ottoman soldiers, to a cave filled with goblins and kill them, to save a kid. After they do so, they return one of their heads to the Sultan and Aris leaves. Soon after, Demir finds him and together, alongside a Witch and a friendly Goblin they face a greater monster and even Death himself.
As years go by and I read more comics from my country, Greece, I appreciate them even more. Having participated myself at some comic festivals as a self-published artist, I've read many great Greek comics, but my appreciation for them is still growing. Lately, with comics like this one, "Naked Bones", "21: The Battle of the Square", "Mysterious Things" and many more masterful Greek comics, I realize that the Greek comic scene isn't just adequate, but it's amazing and it's becoming better and better every year, with many new, promising artists.
Having read and enjoyed many of Rubus' works, I had high expectations for this comic, but it undoubtedly exceeded them by a lot. The basic idea of the comic is very interesting and I hope that the writers will explore it further in their future works, because it has a lot of potential. Basically, the comic follows the idea that there are certain people called Legend Warriors who live for hundreds and even thousands of years and they regain their youth by killing evil creatures that the normal humans don't believe to be real. The main character, Aris, is a Legend Warrior and he is very well written. He was an interesting personality and his chemistry with the other main character, Demir, is very strong. Surprisingly, Aris isn't the real protagonist of the story. The protagonist is Demir and in fact the entire story is narrated by him and is seen by his point of view. Demir is also very well written. Even though he's a part of the Ottoman empire, he's portrayed as good, which is something I really like to see. There's this racism embedded in most Greeks and they believe that all Ottoman/Turkish people are horrible and only want to harm us, which is very far from the truth. In every country of the world there are good and bad people and neither of them are usually responsible for the actions of their governments. Furthermore, Demir sees tremendous character development in the 60 short pages of this comic. He develops a very strong friendship with Aris, which grows naturally, with great pacing. Even though the comic is only 60 pages long and a lot happen in it, its pacing is great and nothing ever feels too rushed or too slow. The story flows naturally and is read very easily and pretty quickly. I personally read this in one sitting and I couldn't stop flipping through the masterful pages. The entire story is amazing and captivating, with exciting fights, filled with tension combined with great character moments. One of my favorite parts of the entire comic is the ending, which was very sweet and touching and really showed how close the characters had gotten.
The artwork by Rubus is incredible. I always loved his artwork and for years I've been considering him as one of the greatest Greek comic artists and with his work in this comic he really proved me right. This is undoubtedly his most mature, detailed and beautiful work yet. The faces of the characters, their strong, almost godly muscles, the captivating environments, the exciting battles... Everything looks incredible. Moreover, the page layouts were amazing and they always worked perfectly. Furthermore, the coloring which I believe was also done by Rubus, is fantastic. He uses very vibrant colors that fit perfectly with his strong and powerful artwork.
Overall, this is a very fun and exciting comic and undoubtedly one of the greatest Greek comic I've read in a while.
10/10