Greek Myth Comix

My piece the second edition of Sing O Muse Zine is today’s @classicstober.bsky.social prompt - the Moirai - the Fates

More detailed than my usual style, and with a cool-toned colour palette to fit the tone of the zine.

#classicstober25

Well, I made it in honour of my patron goddess, and it will be woven in her name, so… it’s up to her to decide if she approves the gift 🤞

Classics Nerds Classics Nerds, sister site to Greek Myth Comix.

Find them and the rest of the collection - and last year’s Minoan Octopus - here: greekmythcomix-1-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp

Every year I do a couple of fun winter projects. Last year I started designing knitwear!
Pleased to officially announce the
CLASSICS NERDS ‘25 collection:
GORGONEION

As a fellow dycalculic, I suggest writing the numbers down as you choose them (and don’t get confused by the pages also being numbered!) I say this as both the author and someone who’s done both while test reading!

These are the best ALT text! Have fun!

It's an immersive experience; the weight of the book alone makes you feel like you've been on a 10-year voyage 😅 A hand holding the cover of the blue and red book, 'You Are Odysseus' by Homer/ L. Jenkinson-Brown. The cover features graphic design elements related to Greek mythology, including a ship, an eye, a siren, an owl, a winged boot, a lightning bolt, and a bow and arrow.

My bookshelf will be leaning slightly to the left! When they said 'epic,' they really weren't just talking about the plot! A photo of the width of the book 'You Are Odysseus' by L. Jenkinson-Brown.

When they said 'epic,' they clearly weren't just talking about the plot - they meant the gravitational pull of the physical object! 😵‍💫
My bookshelf may be panicking, but I'm ecstatic! Time to start some strength training for this absolute unit of a book #YouAreOdysseus 🏹

💙📚

Another 2022 oldie from me (though most of you won’t have seen it!) originally for the prompt ‘coin’. 🥁
(He really should look under his tongue.)

Hopefully getting some time in the week to draw some new things for the rest of this year’s prompts, rather than just doing ClassicsTober repost admin.

Chron the Ferryman is in his boat in the underworld, looking impatient, with impatient souls standing near him. A soul on the shore is frantically playing with his shroud, looking for his coin for the fare. He says ‘why don’t these shrouds have *pockets*?’ Greek Myth Comix

#ClassicsTober #ClassicsTober25 4: SHROUD

Oh lovely! I’m so glad you like it!

Thank you for letting me know! I haven’t had any customs duties added (in UK), and no one who bought any last year reported any either! (This must be something they’ve added to get round myriad tariffs elsewhere, I reckon)

In the flesh: bsky.app/profile/apis...

Picture of me reading at a podium with a sweater with a Minoan octopus design on it in black figure style

Minoan octopus fit, courtesy of @greekmythcomix.bsky.social!

Oh that rocks! You rock!

Ooooohhhhhh! Childhood audiobooks are so damn formative! I still can’t read The Hobbit without hearing Nicol Williamson’s Gollum voice!

I’d forgotten about this illustration I made of the Graiai for ClassicsTober ‘21 (prompt: ‘3’) I’ve reworked it because I love it. Mostly Graiai are described as old hags, but Aeschylus describes them as swan-like, like Sirens, which seems fitting as personifications as the white foam of the sea.

#ClassicsTober #ClassicsTober25 3: Graiai Aeschylus describes them as swan-like, like Sirens, which seems fitting as personifications as the white foam of the sea. Persis (Περσις, “Destroyer”) Deino (Δεινώ “dread”, the dreadful anticipation of horror) “saffron-robed” Enyo (Ἐνυώ “horror” the “waster of cities”  and sometimes Pemphredo (Πεμφρηδώ “alarm”)

#ClassicsTober #ClassicsTober25 3: Graiai

Persis (Περσις, “Destroyer”)
Deino (Δεινώ “dread”, the dreadful anticipation of horror)
“saffron-robed” Enyo (Ἐνυώ “horror” the “waster of cities” 
and sometimes Pemphredo (Πεμφρηδώ “alarm”)

Thank you Alexis! ❤️

Classics Nerds Classics Nerds, sister site to Greek Myth Comix.

Sometimes I wake up not knowing what I want from the day or from life. Then a newsletter delivers a new desire that sweeps over me with unstoppable power. I MUST HAVE ONE OF THESE SWEATERS! greekmythcomix-1-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp via @greekmythcomix.bsky.social

Not sure if I’m more pleased to know you’re on my mailing list or that you really like these! Thanks Louie!

to take the Queen and crown but then the boy grew up and ordered them around like he'd not dared before - and so they made a plan to make him disappear. The Queen would have to choose from them to be the King without him for the role. And he would have escaped if there had not been one - a stranger so they say - who bumbled yesterday into the Palace and said that a ship had come - Odysseus he said - so out the Suitors fled to check the coast all round - Telemachus they found! ODYSSEUS: Oh NO! EUMAEUS: [suddenly suspicious ] In fact, when did you come here? Just today? [He realises. ] You scoundrel, was it you?!

[A wailing cry comes from inside the palace. PENELOPE staggers through the door, bloody, weeping. ] PENELOPE: My son! My son! My boy! EUMAEUS: I fear that all is lost! PENELOPE: He's dead, there, on the throne! They left him there, those men a Kingly parody! ODYSSEUS: I fear it's due to me! [PENELOPE straightens, wipes her eyes. She walks back into the place more sedately than she left. ] EUMAEUS: [threateningly to ODYSSEUS] It's true? You gave them news? Odysseus was home? You lied to earn some bread? You cost the prince his life!

ODYSSEUS: I did! But not to earn a crust or riches, or a bed - I am Odysseus! But humbled, in a state abandoned by the gods for my decisions ill. I'm not the man I was! But I did not intend Telemachus to pay! Oh gods! EUMAEUS: That's right, you pray, before I cut you down! You get him killed, and then you falsely call yourself the King! ODYSSEUS: I have the scar! You see it? It is I!

EUMAEUS: [grabbing ODYSSEUS round the neck] I see the scar, and now I'll scar your throat as well! [Another scream interrupts them from the palace - they freeze. This time it is EURYCLEIA, who runs from the door and sinks to her knees. / Read the full tragedy in YOU ARE ODYSSEUS YOU ARE ODYSSEUS Homer L Jenkinson-Brown

Excerpt from The Tragedy of Odysseus: 5-8/8

Excerpt from THE TRAGEDY OF ODYSSEUS, You Are Odysseus by L Jenkinson-Brown

Excerpt from THE TRAGEDY OF ODYSSEUS You Are Odysseus, L Jenkinson-Brown ODYSSEUS HAS ARRIVED HOME TOO LATE. ATHENE HAS FORSAKEN HIM. ODYSSEUS: [dressed in clothes that are not his own, he enters from the countryside ] Here now I stand alone before my home once more I thought to get some help - the Swineherd loyal, my aim - but Suitors and their slaves did thwart me, til the night that forced me rough to sleep, until the blessed day that brought the sun again and cheered me on my quest to win back home and wife and son - Telemachus. My long-lost son, my heir. I hope once more to be Odysseus again. [He walks, like a man in hiding, round to the other side of the palace. EUMAEUS enters, also from the countryside, but from a slightly different origin. He is in disarray. ]

EUMAEUS: Oh woe, oh woe is me! The young prince - woe is me, is us, is all of us! The young prince has been caught! Telemachus, the Prince, he came to stay with me escaping his own men - the crew aboard his ship the Suitors had cajoled and paid - they to betray their master, drop him off into the Suitor's trap. He came to me instead, alighting from his ship before they'd come to port, to hide... ODYSSEUS: [to himself, aside ] Can it be true - Eumaeus! My old friend! The swine-herd of my youth! And I am sure I heard Telemachus, that name fall from his lips just now! I must go ask his news.

[ODYSSEUS shouts as he goes over to EUMAEUS in a parody of an ignorant visitor / What ho! Hello! You there! Did I hear you just now speak of Telemachus the young prince hereabouts? The son of that old King Odysseus, long-lost, and Queen Penelope? Where is he? Is he here? EUMAEUS: [too into his grief to look at the stranger who speaks to him. / I fear not, stranger, now the Suitors have him - he may never more be seen! ODYSSEUS: Your words stoke fear in me. My heart is in my throat. Is this the Suitors' plan? EUMAEUS: I fear it will be so - the Suitors waited long

For #nationalpoetryday - one of the 51 endings of You Are Odysseus is written in the form of an Ancient Greek tragedy. Here’s an excerpt:
1-4/8

Chicken Thanatos, carrying Sarpeckdon

Chicken Hypnos carrying Sarpeckdon

#ClassicsTober #ClassicsTober25
Days 1 and 2: Hypnos and Thanatos
(Cheating a bit with oldies because I love them)

The book YOU ARE ODYSSEUS face out on a shelf in front of CIRCE on the right and the Percy Jackson books (plus Annabeth's baseball cap and some crafty Camp Halfblood decorations) on the left.

Look what arrived today! It's @lejenksbrown.bsky.social's YOU ARE ODYSSEUS choose your own adventure book!
15yo snatched it up before I could, but she gave it a nice home on that shelf, don't you think?
(I'll borrow it at some point. Soon.)

Me too!!

As a teacher, I approve this message:

YOU ARE ODYSSEUS, a choose-your-own-path retelling of The Odyssey, out now!

Even more incidentally, you can experience Odysseus’ nekyia for yourself in my book YOU ARE ODYSSEUS, a choose-your-own-path retelling of The Odyssey, out now!

laurajenkinsonbrown.co.uk/publications...

A comic showing Odysseus pointing out to Aeneas his underworld ‘journey’ and Aeneas saying ‘Bro, did you even do a katabasis?!’ By Greek Myth Comix

Incidentally, a Katabasis is something Odysseus did *not* do! He did a νέκυια, nekyia, “a ritual for calling on the dead”, most often used to question them about the future. In this comic from #ClassixsTober22, Aeneas is unimpressed. (Words by @csmfht.bsky.social )

ClassicsTober25: Katabasis 1. Hypnos 2. Thanatos 3. Graeae 4. Shroud 5. Hermes Psychopompos 6. Moirai 7. φαρμακίς (pharmakis) - witch, sorceress 8. Erebos 9. Lampades 10. Hekate 11. Torch 12. Styx 13. Empousa 14. Cocytus 15. Τέρατα (Térata) - monsters 16. Typhon 17. Echidna 18. Kharon 19. Shade 20. Acheron 21. Kerberos 22. Judge 23. Lamia 24. Phlegethon 25. Tartarus 26. Punishment 27. Erinyes 28. Phobos & Deimos 29. Mysteries 30. Lethe 31. Elysian Fields

A reminder that #ClassicsTober starts tomorrow on @classicstober.bsky.social and the overall theme is KATABASIS.

One of my musical inspirations for the book!
This is wonderful ❤️