(COMIC) Not At All As Depicted On Television
For the record, Robert Baratheon is a character in “Game of Thrones”; a big fat king who is a notorious womanizer, harem-owner, and one of my favorite characters.
I love fantasy and all that swords-and-sorcery stuff, especially TV shows and movies like “Game of Thrones”, “Conan the Barbarian”, and “Lord of the Rings”, but a lot of fantasy seems to look at ancient European history (of which most fantasy is based) through rose colored glasses. According to various first hand and written accounts, the Medieval period was a truly disgusting time – - people didn’t bathe, shave, they wore the same clothes over and over, no cures of diseases, rotting teeth from lack of dentistry, and people just threw buckets of shit out their windows and into the streets. So whenever I see some beautiful fair maiden in one of these fantasy movies, I gotta roll my eyes. In my opinion, people were gross up to about 1991.
I got the idea for this comic from two sources; a long conversation with my friend Will about Medeival whores, and from my friends Matt Posky, Matt Ferrett, and Vinnie Massimino through their efforts with Timestronauts. The premise here is that time travelers go back in time and end up very confused when they happen to land in the middle of a Renaissance festival. This is before I met them and joined forces with them to create what we thought was going to be the next big thing in Michigan, the SONSOFDADS. Ah, we were foolish young men, then.
You’ve got to give the George Martin books credit for a sometimes overwhelming dose of realism — it’s what hooked me on the series after I had sworn off all fantasy books about 200 years ago (Terry Brooks overdose). If the TV series showed all the blood and bile and other spilled bodily fluids and parts, people would be horrified.
Martin’s work I felt was pretty unique because it mixed in some dark fantasy, brutality, and high fantasy (dragons and shit). It was a weird mixture, but it sort of worked for me. Game of Thrones is amazing; my only beef with it is the extraordinary amount of soap opera style backstabbing, which I suppose can be realistic, but watching it on the TV show made it seem more “high-schooly” to me. Game of Thrones kicks ass both on screen and in the books, but I prefer my free-roaming, swashbuckling rogues (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser) to king’s laden in subterfuges.
I adore fantasy. Especially those involving dragon. On the other hand, I have always loved reading historical fiction (especially English and French historical fiction). I’ve always disregarded the historical innacuracy of fantasies because they are just that, fantasies… Although I suppose that not everyone would be fully conscious of that fact. :p
All that aside, I love your comical cartoons. They are brilliant. ^_^.
Thanks! People are easily misinformed through media; which is a common theme to a lot of posts. Other folks like you who like to read are in no danger of being swayed by whats on the screen or, now these days, video games.
I maintain that any project can be big if you work hard at it and stay the course. We weren’t foolish, we just failed. But it’s okay, there is always time for another project and eventual success.
“In my opinion, people were gross up to about 1991.” was hilarious. It was, unquestionably, the slam dunk that destroyed the backboard of this entry. The comic was good too but that’s just real talk. People need to understand how gross the past was.
How gross, and horrifying it was. Thanks for the like, and congrats (again) on your interview! Your blog is blown up!
Supernatural actually did this in the episode that they go back in time. It was hysterical because Dean was like “There are whores here Sammy!” and then she turned around and the sight was terrifying.