Hannibal Goes to Rome
Genre:
Historical Period, Comedy
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It was a war that embroiled Western Civilization for two decades. Hundreds of thousands died in the steel and ice of the Second Punic War, as the most powerful empires in the world clashed!
Throughout Europe and Africa, kingdoms dissolved, merged and formed in the bloody shockwaves of society's first true clash of empires.
Of course this makes great comedy!
As the mercenary forces of Carthage invade an ever-expanding Roman Empire, only one man has the audacity and talent to command the charge. One man, unlike any other before or since in history, is capable of dismantling the Roman machine. One man, alone, is crazy enough to bring elephants over the Alps. That man is Hannibal Barca, and this is his story, albeit condensed into a sardonic comic strip.
Told in a humorous (yet historically accurate) manner, Hannibal Goes to Rome humanizes the inhumane actions that indelibly altered the course of civilization. More force than man, Hannibal pitted himself against Roman society, and very nearly swept it from history. Despite commanding over the mightiest slaughters in ancient warfare, he strove to maintain a measure of human dignity and respect against an enemy that perfected fascism.
Writer Brendan McGinley (Dose) and artist Mauro Vargas (David & Goliath; Vindicators; Dose) bring you the historical, hysterical account of a man with big dreams, and the big elephants he rode to pursue them.
This May, Hannibal is at the gates.
Fun, educational, and not a skrull to be found! I want more!
Hahaha! Mauro says: send beautiful girls to me, pay a lot, a lot, a lot of money and add colour to Hannibal! Hahaha!
Thanks to all, it means a lot to me.
Gracias muchachos!
It's great to see everyone appreciating the humor here. Such a hard life for a young sophisticate like McGinley, eh? I'm shaking with excitement that Dose #2 is going to be out soon.
Great work from Mauro! awesome!!!
You folks are too kind. But all the great work here is Mauro's. I should've listened to him and colored this bad boy, but I'm so used to enjoying his B&W art in DOSE, I stuck with what I know. He also recommended we not use colored lettering (which I still like, but I see the problem for people). Note to self: LISTEN TO EVERYTHING MAURO SAYS.
This is great.
First, it's funny. I love funny.
Second, it's history. I've always been interested in history.
Third, it's educational.
On the whole, this is how to tell the kids that history is fun. This is how to remind them that "history" is STORY.
They should take this strip and put it in a textbook. Force schoolchildren all over the Western World to read it. Make generations of kids hate Brendan...
Err... Sorry, got carried away.
But still, I mean it: this is not only fun, this has some deeper value.
It's a tough choice, but this gets my vote for this month's competition. It's quite a unique narrative and the art is engaging despite the fact that it's in black and white, a crying shame considering there are no cost concerns for color with online-based work. If it was in color it would be less of a challenge to pick this as the best of the current crop and I'm sure it'd be higher up the list. Best of luck in the comp.
Great work, Brendan! Hilarious and historically accurate; I really like the way it reads. (You couldn't have picked a more interesting protagonist either) Good luck with the contest your entry is gangbusters.
Thoroughly enjoyable.
good stuff
If I remember my History correctly, Hannibal failed to take Rome. However, perhaps he would've taken heart to know that thousands of years later, his march through the Alps might conquer Zuda! Good luck, and in the immortal words of Groucho Marx, the Lord Alps those that Alp themselves.
Peter
I like it. The historical stuff is pretty complex to lay out--but it does a good job of leavening the facts with the cartoony moments of levity.
Cool story and great artwork! Love the sense of humor too. :)
Best of luck!
I mean the "non-competitor promotion comment" is welcome...
I don´t know about Scad! But we´ll see...
Thanks for the critics, all the "non-promotion comment" are welcome!
Historical comedy/adventure strip; not the easiest type of comic to tackle, but you've both pulled it off. The art's aces, vragas. My only real beef is with the colored text (especially when the purple and red collide--my eyes, my eyes!!), but a very professional strip overall.
Scad? A new one to me. If Mauro does, he hasn't told me.
Now that you folks have voted and favorited, might I interest you in http://www.indeliblecomics.com for a glimpse of our upcoming humor anthology, DOSE? It's got two pieces by Mauro inside, and he has a 7-page story in issue following this one.
awesomeness man. i heard you go to scad too. double awesomeness and good luck with the contest.
What an exciting comic. Its not boring at all. The massive amounts of text for each panel only add to the overall enjoyment. If anything it needs more text and less illustration. It's about time someone decided to make the exciting world of history texts into a comic. And this one isn't hindered by lame attempts at humor at all.
Wow, that is a whole lot of kind words. Thanks, everybody. You have no idea how validating it is to see people react to something you put part of yourself into, and also that the criticisms have been erudite and fair. Trustworthy citations make for credible kudos. :)
Yup, this is one of the best in show this month. Not a big fan of ancient history, or Wheat-a-bix the Gaul, but ... the execution is solid, the writing natural and funny, and the art a joy to behold. As everyone has mentioned the coloured writing isn't a good idea, but that's about the only fault. That and the whole thing probably should've been completely coloured anyway. No real good reason for it to be in black and white. The only thing that will render a vote from me unlikely is the subject matter, though if you'd injected more current politic jokes I think you might have swung me over. Anything that takes a swipe at the current fascist dictator of your lovely country is OK in my book. Do ya think I can still get a visa? Anyway I look forward to see this fighting it's way up the rankings and I wouldn't be sorry if it won either. Very best of luck and I appreciate seeing all your hard work right there in all the screens, not just some. I also love the words "This May ..." in the synopsis - very funny!
So, uh... when/how do we get more?
Latin humor! Ahhhhh...
In fact, I would like to have page 5 ( I love that first panel :)..
I want a Hannibal page!
But they have to speak spanish to even understand that blog. Better they should just cruise over to the Golden pages, vote for us and then try and win the spectacular sketch Scott did for them.
Mmmmm!!I have a better idea: the person who gets more people to Hannibal will receive a original Hannibal page, maybe from these 8 or maybe from the next pages.
Visit: www.maurodibuja.blogspot.com
In Neil's spirit of promoting. Come on over and vote for Golden. I know you will love it. And I am starting a little incentive contest. Here is the deal. The person who gets the most people to the Golden pages will receive a one of a kind sketch of Kintaro signed by Scott and me. Get all of your friends, loved ones and associates to stop by Zuda and take a look at Golden. If they leave a message stating that you sent them over there I will keep track and the person with the most referrals by May 23rd will receive the signed Kintaro sketch as well as a signed copy of the script. Sound fun? If you have any questions about it drop me a note here or over in the Zuda talk back section. Don't waste any time. Start getting those folks over there now!
If you want to see a picture of the sketch you will receive go here...
http://www.lostdoggrafix.com/zuda/kintaro-collage-small.jpg
Enjoy! This is a taste of things to come.
Troy
THIS IS THE MONTH THAT BLACK AND WHITE BEATS COLOR UP, not the other way around BANKSHOT! If yer going to mope around admitting defeat, then I'm going to take down neil kleid myself, make him feel the pain of being unseated from number one! i'm going to do it for you as much as for myself BANKSHOT - I'm going to do it for BLACK AND WHITE! MAYO BELONGS TO BLACK AND WHITE! Anybody who was going to be abandoning BANKSHOT to vote for another comic anyway might as well change your vote to CHILDREN OF BIGHAND - FOR BLACK AND WHITE! VOTE CHILDREN OF BIGHAND!
Awesome job! Definitely the best in the competition.
COME DRINK, MCGINLEY. Cry in your beer with me.
Hmmm...On the one hand, I do like comics and Comic Book Club. On the other hand, you beat me up and took my seat, Kleid. I'm gonna have to think about this in between crying jags.
Hey, Hannibal -
After the first ranking, ACTION, OHIO is in first place! But this contest isn't over and we're going to have to fight to stay there... so please register, favorite and vote for us all throughout May.
To promote the comic, I'm taking ACTION, OHIO on the road - I'll be appearing as a guest of the Comic Book Club, New York's only improvised comic book talk show, this Tuesday night at 8pm! Please come and celebrate with me, Alex Zalben, Justin Tyler and Pete LePage as we talk comics, Zuda and the wonder that is beer. Oh, we'll go get beer after. Yes, we will:
http://www.popcultureshock.com/cbclub/
Also, 'dig' us at Digg, friend us at MySpace and watch this space for upcoming interviews, contests and ACTION EXCITEMENT!
I was really drawn in by the sly humor and wit of this strip. When McGinley rocks, he really rocks it.
Great stuff!
I, for one, enjoy the density of it. Less space, more filling. The challenge of fitting an entire survey course's worth of material into a single chapter is nothing to sneeze at. Brendan's plan to delve more deeply into individual scenes in subsequent issues makes sense.
I really like this. But... (there's always a but) colored text on black line-art is yuckus maximus. And it looks kind-of slapped on in spots, though take my crit with a grain of salt because I have an interminable grudge against computer lettering anyway.
.
All that aside, this is killer, and that's a frigging grade-A pun on the last page!
First I will say I love history. I also thought I'd never say this but, there are way to many words here. The characters are also hard to separate sometimes. I like the art, wish there was color though. You have a great style and layout. Very professional over all. I just couldn't finish it though because of all the words. I normally like a lot of words, so for me to say this is odd. It might be because I already know most of what I want about this period already though. I'll give you a 4/5, mainly because I know others will want to learn more about this period from you. I know I would have previously in life.
Thanks to all! Brendan´s script was really fun to draw, and when you enjoy the work, that´s easier for the artist.
Well i'm just impressed. Impressed with the drawing, the writing and the creativity. "I'll send you the bill". <--I also enjoyed the comedy. Bravo!
Thank you all very much! We appreciate your thoughts on both what works (Mauro's art) and what could stand to be tightened up (everything I had a hand in, unsurprisingly).
Smart and funny. I like that in a comic.
Very informative and witty. Great art.
I like the overall tone of the comic, particularly the breezy dialogue. Some good one-liners. Nice mix of realistic, menacing art and more cartoonish stuff. Can be a bit hard to follow at the beginning. Nice work.
i'm sorry, i mean "there is"...
i liked, but sometimes thres is too much informations on the screens. maybe with some kind of colour work...
anyway, congratulations!
Very Look and Learn, with a touch of Asterix. Nice artwork but a bit convoluted and hard to follow.
you get my vote sir... :)
let's make some short animation series for this comic.. :)
Whoa, if I was a history teacher I would love this, but since I am a comic book geek I don't.
Voted.