A Month of Self-Published Comics: House of the Muses #1-3
A Month of Self-Published Comics: House of the Muses #1-3
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Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 11:23 PM EST
Updated: Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 1:50 AM EST
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This month I am posting a review of a different self-published comic book each day for the rest of the month! Here is an archive of the books reviewed so far!
Today I am featuring Pam Harrison’s House of the Muses #1-3.
Let me get something straight right off of the bat. I’m honestly not a fan of the 3-D art style that Pam Harrison uses for House of the Muses. I think it is a very impressive level of 3-D art, and it is remarkable that she is able to tell such a completely realized story with 3-D art and not have it look ridiculous. That’s to her great credit. She’s a whiz with 3-D art, it appears. That said, I just don’t think that even the best 3-D art has gotten to the point where I personally dig it. That’s just me. I am not saying that the art is BAD, by any means (heck, I think Harrison is probably one of the best 3-D comic book artists that I have seen), just that it does not appeal to me.
In addition, there are many times in this work where it seems apparent that this story originated as a prose work, as there are large chunks of text here and there. Almost early-Spawn levels of text.
I wish to get those things out of the way to start, because those are my only two critiques of Harrison’s work, which otherwise is a tremendously entertaining, polished work of art.
The gist of the story is that one of the poems in the collection of Sappho was inexplicably written in Spartan dialect. So Harrison thought, “Hey, there is probably a really fascinating story in there somewhere about a Spartan woman traveling to Lesbos.” And that, in effect, is what House of Muses is about, a Spartan woman named Dika and her journeys through life.
House of the Muses mixes action, romance and drama in a extremely mature fashion, while still managing to always keep the story not too difficult for a teen reader to grasp. It’s an extremely mainstream work, with a little bit of something in there for everyone.
It recently was awarded the fourth annual Queer Press Grant from Prism Comics. It is a well deserved honor, and I hope it may lead to even more distribution of this comic, which already looks extremely polished……
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Pam Harrison
From the acclaimed creator of House of the Muses, A Deviant Mind, The Voices Against Bullying Anthology, contributor to Dark Mischief Horror Anthology, Prism Comics’ ALPHABET LGBTQAI Anthology and Chief Editor of ICC Magazine: Pam Harrison is one of the first and best known CGI artists in Independent Comics. Her work with the historical fiction series House of the Muses earned her the 2008 Prism Comics Queer Press Grant for Outstanding Series, and she continues her storytelling in a gripping sci-fi space opera adventure, A Deviant Mind, that far transcends its original LGBT audience. Keep up to date with all her latest news at houseofthemuses.com.
