«

[gurall200]

If you can say one thing about Warren Ellis, its this, The man knows how to entertain. Whether its making a contrived statement about our culture hilariously subtle to making gory stories, complete with terrifying crotch rot, he can take anything and make it his own, even history.

Crecy is by Warren Ellis, a 48 page graphic 'novel' about the famed battle of Crecy. Essentially its the battle that many consider to be the end of chivalry and what changed modern combat, the specifics can be better explained by a good European history person or wikipedia, but in short, this battle changed everything. Commoner killed nobles, something completely unheard of at the time and more, it was bloody and brutal. Indeed, given his talents, Warren Ellis could indeed write a great epic and indeed compelling story about it..

..if he wanted to..

Every page is narrated by a nameless English long bowmen, a rather cynical and self-aware one at that, whom tells us of the battle, and not in a 300 hundred way, complete with a story or interesting battles but more in a snarky documentary style, and that is pretty much the extent of the story. The entire comic is one long history lecture from a soldier, telling of their tactics, equipment to even what they did to the locals with no actual story attached to it, which in lesser hands, is entirely boring. However its not, Warren Ellis is a genius of a writer, and I honestly think he was challenging himself with this and makes it a interesting and funny, alleviating the boring nature of the concept but its a very unsatisfying concept and frustrating knowing that he could turn it into something genuinely awesome. Bare in mind, this is the man who wrote 'Transmetropolitan', the story of a bat-shit crazy journalist whom fights the government using a bowel disruptor, and 'Black Summer' a story of the fallout and morality of political assassination told using superheroes, both of which were compelling and at times funny and used material that had to be done with finesse. Here, He doesn't try, like he wrote it over the weekend, forgetting he had a comic to write, and comes as lazy and pointless.

Ignoring the writing, The comic sport some great black and white artwork, that can only be described as intricate, and detailed.

Every little detail and expression is drawn with care and detail that is impressive. The penultimate panel of the comic is one of best drawings I have ever seen, perfectly capturing the amount of death that occurred that day. In fact, the comic's $6.99 price tag is well justified by the excellent artwork that makes a ultimately interesting but boring story a enjoyable read.

Overall, Crecy is a decent book, the great artwork more the makes up for a lazy writer who basically could've turned this into a british 300, and made it something genuinely awesome, but as it stands, its cheap price and great artwork are the only things that make it worth checking out.

[Fubb]

May check this out, i just did a presentation yesterday at school about the Hundred Years War, and focused on Crecy, Agincourt, Orleans, Portier's, etc, so this should tie right in

EDIT: I should have kept reading after the first paragraph...