Beowulf

Beowulf by Santiago Garcia and David Rubin, 189 pages

This graphic adaptation of the epic poem generally avoids the banal postmodern revisionism of other adaptations, reducing the story down to the essential confrontations between four monsters - Grendel, his mother, a dragon, and the great Geat himself.  The art is stylized, the colors muddy, the overall effect undeniably ugly - which, however, both suits the brutal directness of the narrative and emphasizes the fleshy substance of the monsters, which are here portrayed not as elusive magic fairies but as viscerally real beasts, perhaps more real than some men.