The True Story of Odysseus

The «Odyssey» is one of the best known literary works from the ancient world that survived many historical upheavals to reach us in the format that is taught today in our schools and universities.

It narrates the adventures of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, in his effort to return back home after the sacking of Troy. Homer is considered to be the composer of this epic tale, although the opinions of the scholars on this matter differ. In this collection of stories the hero is depicted as striving to return home, to his island kingdom and to the faithful wife who has been waiting for him, battling against all odds and in spite of the personal vendetta that the god Poseidon had started against him. In this, more or less «politically correct» version of Odysseus' tribulations the hero manages, after many years of struggle, to finally reach the shores of Ithaca, where, after the brutal elimination of his wife's Pretenders, he is supposed to having settled, to resume the routine that has been interrupted by the Trojan War –the Vietnam of the Achaeans.
However, few people, and even fewer scholars, are aware that there exists another, entirely different version, of Odysseus' adventures telling a different –and somewhat outlandish-- story and depicting a rather unfamiliar portrait of this familiar hero.

While researching among the precious manuscripts of a remote Russian monastery, which, should of course remain nameless, for obvious reasons,Dr Kallinikos Erevan, professor of classical studies to an Australian University, which should also remain nameless, discovered a manuscript entitled «The Travels of Odysseus, former king of Ithaca, as narrated by himself», under catalogue number AR-1546/701.

To his surprise and delight, Dr Erevan, realised that this was an entirely different account of Odysseus adventures, written in a very archaic form of Aeolian Greek, which gave an indication of the vertiginous antiquity of the original manuscript, after which the copy that he was holding in his hands was made. Even more fascinating was the fact that the story was narrated in the first person, as if written –or told-- by the hero himself, just like the title of the precious old manuscript claimed.
Dr Erevan spent two years in the monastery, studying and copying this unexpected find. And the more he studied it the more convinced he became that this was not a spoof or a fantasy created by some bored monk but a genuine work that reached us from antiquity. Whether the author was Odysseus, as it was insinuated, or some scribe who acted as a transcriber of a story he had heard was debatable.

Dr Erevan became obsessed with this discovery and as soon as he returned to civilisation he started a crusade to prove the authenticity of the manuscript, something that brought him the scorn of his academic colleagues and ultimately resulted in the loss of his chair at the university and in him seeing his reputation go down the drain. He died embittered and poor, without a chance to publish his voluminous work for no academic publisher would dare touch it.

By a series of coincidences I happened to read part of his unpublished work. I was thrilled and fascinated! That's the reason why I decided to popularise the strange manuscript in the form of a series of graphic novels. Now it is up to the reader to decide whether this is a more plausible version than the accepted one (by Homer) and if the character of the hero appears to be more interesting than the one that Homer strived to depict.

There will be 14 episodes to this story, each dealing with a separate adventure of Odysseus, as told by himself.