Greek Street Vol. 1: Blood Calls for Blood - Softcover

Milligan, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 140122573X ISBN 13: 9781401225735

Publisher: Vertigo, 2010

Synopsis

GREEK STREET is Peter Milligan's & Davide Gianfelice's re-imagining of the brutal and visceral tragedies that graced the Theater of Dionysus in Ancient Greece. GREEK STREET is an updating of many of the famous Greek dramas (Oedipus Rex, The Orestia, etc) and epic poems (Iliad, Odyssey) into a gritty modern day London. The opening arc follows runaway EDDIE who unknowingly sleeps with his own mother and than accidentally kills her. He's seeks shelter on London's Greek Street - a seedy neighborhood filled with strip joints, dive bars, gangsters and all form of vice. From there he meets a young girl SANDY, cursed with visionary powers that no one believes is real. GS is a sexy blend of crime, supernatural and soap opera all using characters
and plots that are simultaneously familiar yet brand new.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Inspired by classical Greek dramas, the series constructs a crime epic following intertwined stories in modern London and most succeeds in channeling the shock value of the original works. At the center is Eddie, the young man whose effort to rediscover his family leads to disaster. There's also Detective Daedalus, whose murder investigation turns bizarre when the victim returns from the dead as an enraged monster, and organized crime boss Harold Furey and his sons. While Milligan borrows characters' names from ancient Greek tales, the story is not a direct retelling of any of these. Instead it employs a few of the original plot elements with an overall tone evocative of the ancient Greek tragedies. The often shocking violence and sex of the old plays and myths is presented so as to have the same effect on a modern audience that the original works had over 2,000 years ago. Artist Gianfelice doesn't shy away from gore or nudity, but his greatest strength is the expressive faces of the characters. Every look of anguish, suspicion, lust, and fear is rendered successfully to draw readers into the story. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist:

Can comics based on classical Greek drama avoid fusty lessons in mythology and appeal to contemporary audiences? Milligan and Gianfelice answer that question by offering more of an homage to Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides than faithful renditions of their plots, making sure, however, to preserve classical theater’s penchant for gruesome scenarios. Greek Street’s cast includes an adolescent orphan named Eddie, who unwittingly sleeps with his mother and accidentally kills her; the daughter of an aristocrat who experiences prophetic visions of mayhem; and a naked, murderous zombie belonging to a sisterhood of sirens who watch over the action like a Greek chorus. The plot loosely follows Eddy’s ill-fated involvement with a family of criminals that has vowed revenge on a rival family. The story, however, takes a back seat to the montage of gritty images that sweeps us from strip joint to alleyway to corpse-laden crime scenes. Both Milligan’s glib, “voiceover” narration and Gianfelice’s dark-hued illustration gratify. --Carl Hays

About this edition

• Publisher: Vertigo
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 140122573X
• ISBN 13: 9781401225735
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144
• Illustrator: Gianfelice Davide