Warren Ellis' historical graphic novel. One of the best things he's written in a long time.
Full of all the bile and nastiness you've come to expect from Warren. The whole thing is presented as a first person lecture with one of the English longbowmen talking directly to you, the 21st Century reader. And whilst other writers might have completely fucked it up and bored the arse of you, Ellis keeps the whole thing moving and still manages to educate whilst entertaining.
Full review at some point over at
PROPAGANDA at the FPI weblog or on the
Fictions weblog, but for now, a scene setter: Page 1 dialogue......
“This is a story about the English and the French and why the English hate the French.
Which is because they eat frogs, they smell bad, and they’re twenty five miles away”
“I am, of course, a complete bloody xenophobe who comes from a time when it was acceptable to treat people in the next village like they were subhumans. On the other hand, the French make sausages out of horse’s arseholes and have a history of using England as their toilet.”
“So we call the French snail-eating cunts and they can fucking like it.
There’s a word you’ll have to get used to. Cunt. This is a word that many people do not like. But you have to understand the English.
In England, the word cunt is punctuation.”
