''La Sagesse des mythes'' () is a series of French

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

s based on

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

. The series was created by the

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

Luc Ferry Luc Ferry (; born 3 January 1951) is a French philosopher and politician, and a proponent of secular humanism. He is a former member of the Saint-Simon Foundation think-tank. Biography He received an Agrégation de philosophie (1975), a Docto ...

and is published by

Glénat Editions Glénat Editions SA is a French publisher with its head office in Grenoble. Their products include comic albums and manga in France, Benelux, and in the past Spain; it was founded by Jacques Glénat. The Benelux subsidiary, Glénat Benelux N.V., i ...

since 2016.

Creation

The philosopher

used the title ''La Sagesse des mythes'' for a 2008 book where he argued for the relevance of

Greek myths A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of de ...

in the contemporary world. It was published in English in 2014 as ''The Wisdom of the Myths''. The idea to make a comic-book series came from the desire to provide the latest scholarship about Greek mythology in a popular form, as Ferry thought that popular presentations of the stories usually contain many errors. He initiated the project in collaboration with the publishing house

, based on

Grenoble lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...

. At the launch of the project in 2016, 30 volumes were at the planning stage. Beginning with a three-part adaptation of the ''

Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, and is regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts. The literary history of Gilgamesh ...

'', of which the first volume was published in November 2019, the series has included some stories from outside of Greek mythology. Ferry's interpretations and retellings of the myths are influenced by

Timothy Gantz Timothy Nolan Gantz (23 December 1945 – 20 January 2004) was an American classical scholar and the author of ''Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources''. Gantz received his Bachelor of Arts from Haverford College in 1967, and h ...

and

Jean-Pierre Vernant Jean-Pierre Vernant (; January 4, 1914 – January 9, 2007) was a French historian and anthropologist, specialist in ancient Greece. Influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Vernant developed a structuralist approach to Greek myth, tragedy, and ...

. All the stories are written by Ferry, who writes around 30 pages for each album, which turns into manuscripts. The artistic director for the whole series is Didier Poli and the cover art is created by . The images are drawn in the ''

ligne claire ''Ligne claire'' ( French for "clear line", ; nl, klare lijn) is a style of drawing created and pioneered by Hergé, the Belgian cartoonist and creator of ''The Adventures of Tintin''. It uses clear strong lines sometimes of varied width and n ...

'' style and the colour scheme is intended to use colours associated with ancient Greece. The artists for the individual albums are chosen by Poli and Glénat's editorial director Benoît Cousin.

Volumes

''Prométhée et la boîte de Pandore'', ''Thésée et le Minotaure'', ''Persée et la Gorgone Méduse'', ''Antigone'', ''La Naissance des dieux'', ''Tantale et autres mythes de l'orgueil'' and ''Orphée et Eurydice'' have also been republished through the book club .

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sagesse des mythes 2016 comics debuts Classical mythology in comics Comics set in ancient Greece French comics titles