SIEGFRIED: DRAGON SLAYER – Kickstarter Announcement!
Mark Allard-Will, author of the horror-folklore graphic novel The Burning Black: The Legend of Black Shuck (Renegade Arts Entertainment), is currently crowdfunding efforts to complete work on mythology-come-fantasy graphic novel, Siegfried: Dragon Slayer.
Crowdfunding for the project is taking place on Kickstarter and runs until September 15th 2019.
Siegfried: Dragon Slayer is a passion project for Mark, a culmination of a many years-long love affair with ancient pagan mythologies, with this graphic novel being an adaptation of The Völsunga Saga (sometimes known as The Saga of the Völsungs) – a piece of Norse mythology, said to have been transcribed into Saga by Icelandic politician Snorri Sturluson, that would later inspire J.R.R. Tolkien to write The Hobbit.
Mark’s adaptation, however, is more a re-invention of the source material; with the linear structure of the source mythology being taken back to the drawing board and re-imagined in to the modern three-act story structure. Dialogue has also been re-written, taking it in to a modern English. Perhaps most symbolic, however, is the fact that Mark is choosing to given the dragon, Fafnir, more “story time” than he had in the story’s source material.
With a graphic novel comes artwork and the artwork for this project is handled by Jasmine Redford, who creates a heavy fantasy feeling with her coffee-painting and cross-hatched ink work; both of which channel a strong feeling of The Hobbit and of medieval woodcut artwork. This, combined with Mark’s story work, help to really flesh out the fantasy elements of Mark’s re-imagining and those that, by virtue of having had some influence on Tolkien, existed in the source material.
The book will be 144 pages in length with 129 story pages. All information on the Kickstarter can be found right here.