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.
Commissioned by the Olympians, through the intermediary of Hera, Odysseus sails south, into this part of Africa that the ancients called «The Underworld». His mission is to steal some important data from Hades, the Lord of this domain.
