It's a choice Smythe seems to have made in order to point out how retrograde today's skimpy fashions are. The sense of anachronism is particularly strong in Smythe's female characters, most of whom have absurdly exaggerated hourglass figures and dress in extremely revealing outfits and high heels. Another time, a god is seen reading an actual newspaper (the very notion!). At one point two gods call one another using corded phones. Sometimes she inserts deliberate anachronisms to remind the reader that this isn't just the modern world with gods in it, but a world that's both ancient and modern at once. Her faces seem to be inspired by an unlikely forebear: They have the yearning eyes and pointy noses of Jules Feiffer's people. Though she makes lavish use of all the showy visual effects that drawing apps put at artists' fingertips, she also uses shapes and images borrowed from cartoons created half a century ago. This agenda appears most clearly in the book's art. Guilt-ridden over what he did to Persephone, Eros shows up at her and Artemis' apartment with "apology donuts." When Hermes and cool-guy Apollo stop by, the quartet play a board game and heat up dinner in a Crock-Pot.ĭel Rey Hades and Hera in a scene from Lore Olympus.Īt the same time, though, Smythe wants her readers to reflect on how the antiquated values that have shaped social relations since the time of myth persist in our modern era. Some of Smythe's updates are about what you'd expect, like when she casts the brothers Zeus, Poseidon and Hades as club-hopping party boys and has Artemis describe Persephone's mom Demeter as a "helicopter." But many of Smythe's choices establish her characters as decidedly of the now. Lore's characters may be inspired by the original stories, but they act less like their millennia-old versions than like young people of today. (Later in the book Persephone is roofied, however, so readers sensitive to depictions of sexual assault should steer clear.) Instead, Aphrodite has Eros - a flighty guy with a shopping addiction - get Persephone drunk and hide the passed-out girl in the backseat of Hades' sports car.
"You look like a relic." When the nymph Minthe wants to manipulate Hades, she ghosts his texts Hades, meanwhile, ignores texts from Persephone because they're headed "User Unknown." Most importantly, Smythe's Hades doesn't kidnap Persephone at all. "You can't wear that!" her friend Artemis tells her. The first time we see Persephone, she's planning to wear a toga-style robe to Zeus' big party. These gods play the same interpersonal games that dominate today's sexually frank, cell-phone-mediated social world. These gods play the same interpersonal games that dominate today's sexually frank, cell-phone-mediated social world.īut Smythe's take on classic myth is anything but hidebound. We've got your morning reading covered.Smythe's take on classic myth is anything but hidebound.
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Ready for more crazy mythology? How about some spunk island and poop gods? Maybe some detachable wieners? See all that and more in Bukkake Of The Gods: Japan's Insane Creation Myths and 5 Ancient Gods Whose Genitals Should Have Their Own Movie.
9 at 7 p.m.? Then do it! Tickets are on sale now.
Want to see Cracked editors talking post-apocalyptic movie worlds with scientists and special guests during a LIVE PODCAST at UCB on Dec. Laura H enjoys obscene musicals and pretending that she has a future. You can say hi to Abraham on Twitter, or visit his DeviantArt account.
She also has an ebook, Rending The Seal, available through Smashwords. Kelly Stanaway studies current and ancient mythology as a hobby and can be found on Twitter.