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A review by paracyclops
The Adventures of Luther Arkwright by Bryan Talbot
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Bryan Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright is a formative influence on me—all of my ideas about storytelling and worldbuilding probably have a bit of this comic in them. I first read it as the original run was being completed at the end of the 80s, and then re-read it as a collected paperback, perhaps twenty years ago. I've just re-read it in order to re-appraise myself of the plot, preparatory to reading The Legend of Luther Arkwright. I've owned that (the second sequel) since it came out in 2022, but I've delayed reading it until I could dig its predecessors out of the enormous pile in which my books were stored until recently.
My return to the source, to Talbot's first writer-artist masterpiece, invited obvious comparisons to his Grandville series, since I've read those books quite recently. They're quite a different kettle of fish in narrative terms, but certainly illustrative of his development as an artist. Talbot uses a fine, detailed, pen-and-ink style, which often resembles copper-plate engraving, and combines it with a wonderfully inventive, imaginative approach to worldbuilding and design. He first became well-known for his work in 2000AD on Nemesis the Warlock, and the style of Luther Arkwright is very recognisable to the reader weaned on those comics, as I was. Grandville takes that general stylistic approach, and realises it with breathtaking skill, and incredible dynamism. In Arkwright it's something of a work in progress. The drawing and layouts are beautiful, and the design work he brings to his febrile, steampunk imaginings is incredible. However, this is the kind of artwork that tends to stop the reader in their tracks rather than flinging them on through the story. Often this is simply because there's a great deal of content on each page—you need to read it closely to absorb all the information that constitutes the story. Equally often, it's because the art is so striking that you want to stop and look at it—in contemporary commercial comics it's often the case that only the big double-page spreads have that level of detail, as the medium has established techniques for balancing illustrative gorgeousness and narrative impetus. In Arkwright every page is a rich feast of detail and symbolism. Also, at this stage in his career, Talbot had not yet learned how to draw in this way with the freedom and intensity he brought to the Grandville books. Instead, there is often a monumental quality to his pen-work—action scenes can appear frozen in place, with no clear path from their immediate past to their future.
This isn't really a great obstacle to the story, as Talbot's narrative is a baroque complexity of myth and symbol, which invites the reader to stop and chew on it at every turn. He takes a whole mess of Western Hermeticism, Buddhist mysticism, New Age millennialism, and Moorcockian relativism, and stirs it all up into a wonderfully rich stew of science-fantasy multiversal worldbuilding. Luther Arkwright himself is a messianic figure, a genetic psi-warrior gone rogue, who achieves transcendence in the torture chambers of a Cromwellian regime in a parallel twentieth century where the English Civil Wars have been ongoing since the 1640s. There are clear parallels to the work of Michael Moorcock, who wrote the preface to this collected edition, but really Talbot just takes the idea of the multiverse, and of the pale, 1960s rockstar-inspired hero, and runs with it down his own very particular alleyway. Along the way he produces the first really coherent visual steampunk milieu that I'm aware of (Moorcock having been one of the first writers to concatenate the ingredients of that sub-genre in prose), and makes an incredibly powerful, if subtle and oblique argument for peace and love. I wasn't sure how much of an apprentice-piece this would seem, returning to it after so many years, but for me, it's a very completely achieved work. It's hard to imagine how Talbot could have decided to embark on something so ambitious in 1978, when the first episode was published, but he did, and wow. It's very entertaining, if you can get a handle on its intentions, and is full of fan-service and wish-fulfilment, but only if you happen to share a lot of Talbot's background, in terms of the hippy-mystical milieu from which this book emerges. It will probably be baffling to a lot of younger readers, but I hope the sheer depth and detail of its construction will make a richly intriguing meal, even if most of the references don't land explicitly. If they do land, then it's a beautiful mindfuck.
My return to the source, to Talbot's first writer-artist masterpiece, invited obvious comparisons to his Grandville series, since I've read those books quite recently. They're quite a different kettle of fish in narrative terms, but certainly illustrative of his development as an artist. Talbot uses a fine, detailed, pen-and-ink style, which often resembles copper-plate engraving, and combines it with a wonderfully inventive, imaginative approach to worldbuilding and design. He first became well-known for his work in 2000AD on Nemesis the Warlock, and the style of Luther Arkwright is very recognisable to the reader weaned on those comics, as I was. Grandville takes that general stylistic approach, and realises it with breathtaking skill, and incredible dynamism. In Arkwright it's something of a work in progress. The drawing and layouts are beautiful, and the design work he brings to his febrile, steampunk imaginings is incredible. However, this is the kind of artwork that tends to stop the reader in their tracks rather than flinging them on through the story. Often this is simply because there's a great deal of content on each page—you need to read it closely to absorb all the information that constitutes the story. Equally often, it's because the art is so striking that you want to stop and look at it—in contemporary commercial comics it's often the case that only the big double-page spreads have that level of detail, as the medium has established techniques for balancing illustrative gorgeousness and narrative impetus. In Arkwright every page is a rich feast of detail and symbolism. Also, at this stage in his career, Talbot had not yet learned how to draw in this way with the freedom and intensity he brought to the Grandville books. Instead, there is often a monumental quality to his pen-work—action scenes can appear frozen in place, with no clear path from their immediate past to their future.
This isn't really a great obstacle to the story, as Talbot's narrative is a baroque complexity of myth and symbol, which invites the reader to stop and chew on it at every turn. He takes a whole mess of Western Hermeticism, Buddhist mysticism, New Age millennialism, and Moorcockian relativism, and stirs it all up into a wonderfully rich stew of science-fantasy multiversal worldbuilding. Luther Arkwright himself is a messianic figure, a genetic psi-warrior gone rogue, who achieves transcendence in the torture chambers of a Cromwellian regime in a parallel twentieth century where the English Civil Wars have been ongoing since the 1640s. There are clear parallels to the work of Michael Moorcock, who wrote the preface to this collected edition, but really Talbot just takes the idea of the multiverse, and of the pale, 1960s rockstar-inspired hero, and runs with it down his own very particular alleyway. Along the way he produces the first really coherent visual steampunk milieu that I'm aware of (Moorcock having been one of the first writers to concatenate the ingredients of that sub-genre in prose), and makes an incredibly powerful, if subtle and oblique argument for peace and love. I wasn't sure how much of an apprentice-piece this would seem, returning to it after so many years, but for me, it's a very completely achieved work. It's hard to imagine how Talbot could have decided to embark on something so ambitious in 1978, when the first episode was published, but he did, and wow. It's very entertaining, if you can get a handle on its intentions, and is full of fan-service and wish-fulfilment, but only if you happen to share a lot of Talbot's background, in terms of the hippy-mystical milieu from which this book emerges. It will probably be baffling to a lot of younger readers, but I hope the sheer depth and detail of its construction will make a richly intriguing meal, even if most of the references don't land explicitly. If they do land, then it's a beautiful mindfuck.