Page 45 Review by Stephen
August 1346, and the English are being marched towards Crécy in France in the pouring rain. "Because we've been a bit naughty whenever we've seen a village of two." Amongst their number is William of Stonham, ancestor of the British football hooligan. He is your host, you lucky things.
"My country, my England, it has a way of making people its own. Angles, Saxons, Danes, even some of the bloody French. Which is not to say we want more bloody French. What we would like more of, though, is their land. We're an island nation. And some of it -- like fucking Scotland -- is of no use to us. Limited amount of land, limited amount of people. I mean, it's not like there are any bloody humans living there, is it? Land is crucial because they don't make it any more. What there is on this world is all there is."
And there's going to be a lot less of it if this weather keeps up. The strategy, as he sees it, boils down to, "Stab the French until they can't steal our country, and help ourselves to some of theirs." To which end, the army has been conducting shock-and-awe raids in a bid to terrifying the population into believing their king can't protect them - into persuading them that they'd better off under English rule. So the French aristocrats are chasing them down, but the English have a secret weapon, the longbow, and modern warfare is about to be changed forever.
Ellis manages the not inconsiderable trick of making what's basically one long, formalised monologue into an entertaining discourse on English-French relations, their various arsenals and strategies, and the battle of Crécy itself. It's bawdy and brutal and perfectly of its time, even though the language itself belligerently isn't. Caceres' art is equally ugly in all the best ways, and equally successful in keeping you transfixed, occasionally moving on hours in a single panel (from daylight into firelight) in mid-monologue.
Not the most obvious subject for a comic nor the most obvious approach, so although the voice is Ellis' through and through, it's still something new. Unless, of course, you're signed up to Warren's Bad Signal, because as Alex Sarll recently pointed out to me, he doesn't half think out loud there, before plonking those thoughts straight onto paper!
