Rise of the Aegean: Eric Shanower
In my opinion, one of the best comic books on the market right now is Age of Bronze by Eric Shanower. A tale of the Trojan War, it’s one hell of an undertaking and has proven to be an intricate and rewarding experience from the very first issue. If ancient history and great stories interest you, I highly recommend checking out Age of Bronze. I suppose it goes without saying that I was delighted when Eric agreed to an interview! Without further ado, here is the result of our email exchange…
Steven G. Saunders (SGS): Age of Bronze is an amazing undertaking, no question about it; could you please tell us just how this project came about, how you went through putting it together, and how it came to be on Image Comics?
Eric Shanower (ES): I didn’t have any particular affinity for the Trojan War before I got the idea for Age of Bronze. Of course, I’d read children’s versions of Greek mythology when I was a kid, but the Trojan War was never one of my favorite Greek myths. Unlike, say the story of Jason and the Argonauts—which made a cheesy movie that, nevertheless, I still love—the Trojan War has a lot of material that’s not so straightforward, that’s layered in its emotions and motivations, the sort of material that I’d venture to say doesn’t translate well to a child’s experience.
In February 1991 I was finishing the final Oz graphic novel. I often listen to books on audio tape while I work. I heard The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara Tuchman. Her chapter on Troy made clear that the Trojan War story has been told over and over through the centuries, so that there are many different versions, some of them conflicting. I thought it would be interesting to combine all the versions into one, reconciling all the differences. I also wanted to focus on the human aspect, to show that the characters were responsible for their own decisions, even though they often credit the gods with the bad decisions.
And, of course, I wanted to set the story in the correct time period, the 13th century BCE, rather than the sort of nebulous Greco-Roman drag it’s often saddled with. Time and again people talk to me about the characters wearing togas. Well, there wasn’t such thing as a toga in Greece in the 13th century BCE. The toga is a Roman garment of about 1000 years later. I usually don’t correct people who talk about togas in Age of Bronze—I don’t want to seem like a know-it-all—but this misconception is a symptom of how the Trojan War has traditionally been traditionally pictured in the wrong historical period. Not that it’s necessarily wrong to stray from historical accuracy. The Trojan War story is mythology, after all, so if one wants to present it as fantasy—a legitimate choice in my view, just not one I made—then period doesn’t really matter much. But that’s not what I’ve chosen to do in Age of Bronze. I’m going for a correct representation of the historical period the war would have taken place in—if such a war actually occurred.
These decisions forced me into two areas of research: 1) literary (and artistic) research on the story beginning with Homer’s Iliad, and 2) archaeological research on the Aegean Late Bronze Age. As soon as I conceived the idea for Age of Bronze, I knew it would be a massive project, so I didn’t really start research right away. But by 1992, I realized the idea wasn’t letting go of me, so I started work. Basically, I found whatever books I could find—in bookstores and libraries—that had something to do with my subject, and read them. It wasn’t a particularly organized effort. I didn’t have a deadline and I had many other projects in the early- to mid-1990s. But by ’96 I was writing scripts for the first few issues and looking for a publisher.
At first I was planning to publish Age of Bronze myself—that’s one of the reasons my partner, David Maxine, and I formed Hungry Tiger Press in 1994. But then the bottom fell out of the comic book business and I figured self-publishing wasn’t the safest idea for the health of the project. A comic store owner I’d known for years was planning to start a publishing company and asked whether I had any projects. Age of Bronze seemed the perfect fit, but after awhile, this prospective company had failed to publish any projects, so I began looking for other options. At a convention I was showing ashcans of the first Age of Bronze issue around to see who might be interested. I hadn’t seriously considered approaching Image Comics. I saw Image as a publisher of superheroes and big-breasted women with guns. But I’d known Erik Larsen for several years, so I gave him one of the ashcans just to show him what I was working on. I never expected he’d say, “I’ll publish this.” But that’s how Image ended up publishing Age of Bronze.
SGS: I’ve noticed that the story you present of the Trojan War comes from many different sources and that there’s no supernatural element, making the story have a gritty and realistic feel. What sources have you used in the telling of this epic tale and what is impetus behind deciding to not use the more fantastic elements from, say, the Iliad?
ES: I have trouble with the phrase “gritty and realistic.” Why do people say that? Why don’t they say “beautiful and realistic” or “hilarious and realistic”? Certainly beauty and hilarity are real. Grit isn’t the only realistic thing in life. “Gritty” makes me imagine crunching sand in my teeth, an impression I don’t think I’ve ever gotten from comics. Yes, I’ve eliminated the supernatural element of the traditional Trojan War story in order to focus on the human motivations. Does that qualify as gritty? I certainly hope that Age of Bronze is a more varied experience than just grit.
My story sources are far too numerous to list here. I’ll direct readers to the bibliographies in the Age of Bronze graphic novels where the story sources are grouped together. The oldest version we have of the story is Homer’s Iliad, so that’s the foundation. But the Iliad isn’t the whole story, just one episode. There were other epic poems in ancient Greece that told the rest of the story. Those are lost, but we have summaries and fragments. Of course, the great Greek tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, all wrote plays dealing with events surrounding the Trojan War. Later Greek poets and historians wrote versions of the story. The Romans also created Trojan War works, the most famous being Virgil’s Aeneid. Europe of the Middle Ages was fascinated by the Trojan War, so there are dozens of works from all over Europe. During the Renaissance, Homer’s Iliad, which had been unknown in the west for centuries, was rediscovered in time for Shakespeare to incorporate material from the Iliad into Troilus and Cressida. And it’s never stopped. There’s always a new work—whether it’s prose, stage, art, music, you name it—being created with a basis in the Trojan War tradition. You can’t get away from it—Ajax cleanser, Toyota Cressida, Achilles heel, or Trojan condom—the Trojan War is all around us.
The fundamental reason I haven’t included gods and other supernatural elements in Age of Bronze is because I don’t believe in them and Age of Bronze is my statement about what life is like; not what life should be or what it could be, but what it’s like.
SGS: How do you create, or re-create, these classic figures of legend? What kind of liberties do you take? Which characters, if any, did you add that were completely your idea?
ES: Well, it’s sort of difficult to explain how I create Age of Bronze. The outline of the story is pretty much a given. Many of the primary characters already have rich personalities and the stories of how each one grows have been told and retold many times. So I just need to make sure they stay within character and on the correct paths. I try not to take any liberties. Of course, without the intervention of the gods, I sometimes have to come up with new reasons for things to happen. But the tradition of the Trojan War story is so long, with so many variations, I can usually find a reason if I look long enough.
For instance, the traditional episode of the Judgement of Paris has three goddesses appearing to Paris as real beings. Since I’m excluding the supernatural, I had to find a different way to handle this episode. That wasn’t too hard, since the medieval Christian tradition couldn’t accept the concept of three Greek goddesses as real and transformed the Judgement of Paris into a dream. That’s the tradition I used.
Sometimes I have to take liberties within certain parameters to make events work in a way I consider convincing. I was having trouble with the episode of Odysseus’s Madness (issue 7), where he doesn’t want to join the Achaean army. In Homer’s Odyssey, the only creature that initially recognizes Odysseus when he returns home in disguise is his dog Argos. Argos isn’t involved in any other version of the Madness of Odysseus, but I put him in mine. That’s a liberty, but I think it’s fair. Argos was certainly around before Odysseus left to join the army, so why not use him in the story if he fits well?
I haven’t added any characters of my own. In fact, there are characters I draw into the story again and again who have names and their own detailed backgrounds, but who I just can’t fit into the storyline of Age of Bronze because they’re so tangential. I shoehorn as much as I can in., but some material—for instance, the back-story of Kalchas’s two sisters—I just haven’t found a place for and probably won’t find one in the future.
SGS: Do you use modern convention or events and place them (with proper period modification, of course) within the context of Age of Bronze? Or do you prefer to keep it strictly period, without any outside and/or modern inspiration?
ES: I’m not exactly sure what you mean by that. Yes, I take modern versions of the story and integrate them into the text. Eugene O’Neill’s trilogy of plays Mourning Becomes Electra is a version of the Oresteia set in post-American Civil War New England. I integrated a little material from Mourning Becomes Electra into the episode of the Sacrifice of Iphigenia in Age of Bronze (issue 18).
I don’t take modern events and stick them into the story. Everything in Age of Bronze is from source material. Sometimes I have to create a scene as a vehicle to communicate information from my sources. I often need to modify events to eliminate the supernatural. For example, the healing of Telephus’s wound (issue 16) was traditionally accomplished by Achilles scraping rust from his spear into the wound. This was too magical for Age of Bronze, so I massaged it into Achilles searing the wound with the heated spear.
Kassandra’s backstory (issue 11) was cobbled together from many different versions. It ended up in Age of Bronze being a story of child sexual abuse, which I feared would seem way too modern. But the way these many different versions all fit together insisted on it. So that’s what I presented in Age of Bronze.
And certainly the issues surrounding war and the inhumanity of humanity never change. So if anyone gets any current resonances from Age of Bronze, that’s hardly surprising. I’m pleased if that aspect of the project comes through.
SGS: What I meant about modern “convention” and such is if you ever apply modern morals, ethics, principals and social thinking to the story…
ES: For the most part, I think the larger moral questions of humanity don't change. But there are specific instances in Age of Bronze where the ethics of the characters are very different from current western standards. Human sacrifice, for instance. Although it's seen as an extreme measure in Age of Bronze, it's not beyond the pale for that society as a whole, as it is for ours. I don't advocate killing your kids, but it wasn't actually very difficult for me to put myself in the place of the characters who wanted Iphigenia killed in order to achieve their goal of setting sail. As another example, the attitude toward women as possessions as well as people isn't as alien to our society as most people would like to think, so it's not really much of a stretch for me to adopt that attitude for the purposes of fiction. Really, it's the job of any fiction writer to take on the aspects of his or her characters, so if I didn't place myself within their points of view, I wouldn't be doing my job. I definitely try not to judge them from a modern point of view. I do judge them from what I hope is a timeless point of view, judge them fundamentally as human beings rather than whether they meet a societal standard. I also want to make it clear that I love them all, even when they're being awful.
It's really difficult to know what the cultural attitudes of the 13 century BCE were. Such nuances don't tend to remain. We can dig up pottery and the remains of walls, but what people thought easily disappears. But Age of Bronze is historical fiction, not historical fact, so I can get away with a lot. And the story is already laid out for me; all I need to do is follow as well as I can in the path that's been blazed by many creators before me. So getting a sense of the culture of the story's societies isn't as difficult as you might think at first.
There are tons of studies of the world of Homer's Iliad. It's been analyzed over and over for many years, so it's not like I have no help in understanding the world Homer created in the poem. I just need to arrange and integrate it all as artfully as I can.
Several people have found my decision to incorporate versions of the story from throughout history problematic. I understand this. For example, Chaucer's poem Troilus and Criseyde deals with the medieval concept of courtly love, a very specific cultural attitude which doesn't necessarily translate well (or at all) into the world of the Aegean Late Bronze Age. But I wish these folks would give me a little credit. It's my job as the author to take what I find valid from the myriad Trojan War traditions and combine them into one coherent story line. That's what Age of Bronze is all about. Of course, it's up to the readers to decide for themselves if the result is a valid reading experience or not. All I can really claim is that I'm trying to do my best.
SGS: About how long will you plan to work on Age of Bronze?
ES: Until it’s done. Twelve more years? Fifteen? Who knows?
SGS: So, how much of an expert have you become on Hellenic myth and history? Research, I’ve found, is quite rewarding in its own right… would you agree with this? Could you cite what tomes you most often reference?
ES: I think I have a pretty solid knowledge of the Trojan War story and the areas of Greek myth surrounding it. Beyond that my Greek myth is a bit sketchy. And I think I have a reasonable grounding in Mycenaean and Hittite archaeology of the Late Bronze Age. But there’s always something new to discover, something I didn’t know before, another way to look at things. Certainly the archaeology is difficult for me as a non-specialist. There are people who study specific objects in incredibly minute detail. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to assimilate it all, but I do the best I can. I hope whatever I can learn adds richness to Age of Bronze, whether or not it actually ends up on the page.
I love doing the research. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of the project. Stumbling across a new version of an episode is really exciting, especially if it adds detail and variation to the versions I already know.
Robert Graves’s Greek Myths has been an indispensable resource, especially for leading me to other sources. Timothy Gantz’s Early Greek Myths has been really important, too. Neither of these, however, offers much of more recent creation, and by recent I mean the last 1000 years or so. Basically, I let one source lead me to others. I search both the mythology and archaeology sections of most every library and bookstore I enter. I search library catalogs. I track down books that people mention to me. I watch videos, I go to plays and operas, and I search museums for paintings and sculpture on Trojan War themes. I guess it’s a bit haphazard, but I don’t know how else to do it. There’s not a listing of every single work ever created about the Trojan War. I don’t know how there could be. Again, anyone who’s interested in my sources should consult the bibliographies in the Age of Bronze graphic novels.
Sometimes one source will provide a major basis for an episode. For instance, Statius’s incomplete epic poem Achilleid provided my primary source for Achilles’s story (issues 5-8) before he joined the Achaean army. Euripides’s play Iphigenia at Aulis provided the foundation for my Sacrifice of Iphigenia (issues 17-19). But in both these examples, many other sources provided material that I integrated.
SGS: What do you want readers to take from Age of Bronze? Are there any kinds of life lessons, morality tales or allegory you wish your audience to “get”? I really enjoy the pronunciation guides you provide and overviews of what’s going on. It seems to me that you aren’t just taking the reader on a ride or simple journey, but you are trying to provide them with the best immersive experience possible.
ES: There are certainly themes in Age of Bronze that I’d like the reader to get. I’m reluctant to discuss them in detail—I’d much rather let the story speak for itself. But the main one I want readers to take to heart is that we’re all responsible for our own actions. However, I certainly don’t ever want anything like theme to ever eclipse that idea that the Trojan War is a damn good story worth reading for its own sake.
The pronunciation guides are there because some of those names are just impossible. It’s worse than reading a 19th-century Russian novel. I refuse to change the names or dumb it down, so I try to make it as easy as possible for the reader by providing the pronunciation guide and short descriptions of the characters to remind the reader who the characters are. The gap between issues is so long that I can’t expect any reader to remember what’s going on from one issue to the next. I hope the recaps on the inside front covers help. I feel sorry for anyone coming into the story in the middle. I recommend starting with the first graphic novel, A Thousand Ships. I also have a complete synopsis of all past issues and an alphabetical pronunciation guide on the website: http://www.age-of-bronze.com
And whether I achieve my goal or not, I do strive to make the world Age of Bronze takes place in seem absolutely convincing. But that’s hardly unique to writers of fiction, especially historical fiction.
SGS: One of the things I enjoy about Age of Bronze is how you don’t really pull any punches (or spear thrusts, if you will) showing how life was like back then. It could be harsh, callous, and brutal with extreme violence, rape and nasty acts of betrayal being quite common. However, it should be said that you also pepper the story with intense drama and some excellent comedy. Do you like to strike a balance with all of this? Or do you prefer to focus on the overall conflict with everything else being secondary, tertiary, and so on?
ES: One of the reasons I think the Trojan War story has survived for about 3000 years is that in pretty much encompasses the whole of human experience. I hope Age of Bronze reflects that. I do consciously try to spike it with humor whenever I can. The story is grim and tragic overall, but reading a long story that’s unrelentingly grim and tragic would be, I think, intolerable. Variation in tone and atmosphere is essential. I certainly don’t see myself as a humorist, and I’m pretty bad at slapstick—for instance, I was really scared of Mnemon running into Patroklus’s shield (issue #20), though I finally decided it worked okay—but I find that a sort of wry, dark humor comes naturally enough to me. Mostly I let the story happen in my head, get it down on paper, and then shape it into something that I hope works. It’s in the shaping stage that I try to bring into focus any humor that seems organically there already. The whole story is pretty dramatic, so as far as drama goes, it’s not something that needs to be coaxed forth—just smoothed into shape. As far as shaping Age of Bronze as a whole, though, well, I’m not sure I’m doing that well. A serially published story doesn’t lend itself well to that. Of course, I have a firm grasp of all the elements, and I always know where I’m going. But there are seeds of events to come that I’ve had to sow all along the way, and I’m not sure how smoothly that works. I often imagine readers wondering why I the world I’ve presented something. For instance, Oenone’s appearance at the end of issue #3 probably seems completely unnecessary. But it’s actually a set-up for events still to come.
SGS: And what is planned for the future of this chronicle of one of the most recounted events in Western culture?
ES: Well, there’s this big wooden horse . . .
The next graphic novel will be out in summer 2007, title Betrayal – Part One. I’ve had to divide book three, Betrayal, into three parts. Betrayal – Part One will contain issues 20 through 26. Betrayal – Part Two and Part Three will cover the Great Foray of Achilles, Troilus and Cressida, and the Betrayal of Palamedes.
Book four, Rage, will be my adaptation of Homer’s Iliad, and will likely be three parts as well. After that there will still be three books to go. Book five will contain Penthesileia, Eurypylus, and Memnon. Book six will contain the deaths of Achilles, Ajax, and Paris. Book seven will be the Fall of Troy and its immediate aftermath—that’s the one with the big wooden horse.
SGS: How have those academically inclined to ancient history taken to Age of Bronze? Has the response been positive?
ES: Overall, yes. I’ve received a lot of enthusiastic response from archaeologists and some classicists. The American Journal of Archaeology gave A Thousand Ships and Sacrifice really excellent reviews. For AJA to review comics, much less review them positively, is something I felt triumphant about.
A few classicists get really irritated that I haven’t included the gods, but it seems to me that those individuals can’t get their minds around the fact that I’m not adapting Homer, but rather the entire tradition.
I’ve presented on Age of Bronze to the Classics departments at the University of Cincinnati—which has been involved with the last two archaeological expeditions at Troy in Turkey as well as at Pylos in Greece, where in myth Nestor was king—and at the University of Southern California and at the University of California, Los Angeles. Later this month I’m speaking at Illinois Wesleyan University.
SGS: I’m curious about how Achilles & Patroklus are depicted, especially on one of the Age of Bronzee t-shirts. Personally, I absolutely love it. But it does depict two men engaged in a passionate kiss, which for some reason in this so-called enlightened age is considered controversial. Now, their bond is extremely important for any tale involving them, is your decision to portray them this way, in both comic and the resulting apparel, your way of making a point (whether social or story-based) or something else entirely? Have you received any complaints and/or praise over this?
ES: When I first decided to retell the story of the Trojan War, I wasn’t aware of the tradition of Achilles and Patroklus as lovers. When I ran across it, I was grateful for the opportunity to present yet another facet of human experience. Also, since I’m a gay man, I have some affinity for it. But my inclusion of it in Age of Bronze is because I’m including as many aspects of as many versions of the Trojan War story as I possibly can. It’s far too well-entrenched in the traditional story for me to ignore it. Achilles is actually one of the most fascinating characters of the Trojan War, one of the most richly layered personalities. He has aspects of complete clarity alongside aspects of complete blindness. And his love life is really varied—multiple men and women.
I’ve received both complaints and praise over my presentation of Achilles and Patroklus’s relationship. I like praise. I don’t like complaints much, although they do have the usefulness of forcing me to solidify my thoughts. At the bottom, though, I’m presenting the story as it’s already been established before me. Of course, it’s through the lens of my creativity, so it’s definitely “my” version. But I’m not adding anything, merely fleshing out for smoothness, drama, and clarity.
SGS: Looking back on all of the work you’ve done so far on this Story of the Trojan War, what are you most proud of? Would you change anything if given the chance to do it again?
ES: I’m most proud of the instances where I can meld contradicting versions of the story together, add a bit of the archaeology, and come up with something that seems to work as naturally as if that’s the way it was originally created. I think that the Sacrifice of Iphigenia has a lot of those aspects. I was tickled by my own cleverness at inserting a Linear B tablet in place of Agamemnon’s letter to Klytemnestra that Menelaus intercepted. The letter comes from Euripides’s Iphigenia in Aulis. That’s Classical Greek. But what sort of “letters” did they have in Mycenaean times? Who knows? But we do know that the Mycenaeans kept records on clay tablets in the system of writing we call Linear B. So, voila! That’s what I decided I had to use. I even came up with my own Linear B translation of the message, although you can’t really see it in the published comic.
There are certainly details, mostly archaeological, which I wish I had a chance to rethink now and possibly redo. But I knew the serial nature of Age of Bronze’s publication would give certain restrictions. I do, actually, make revisions between the serialized comic book and the collected graphic novels. I’ve even made minor revisions between printings of the graphic novels. But major decisions that I might do differently now, I’m stuck with. Oh, well, limitations are simply a creative challenge.
SGS: Now, if you don’t mind, tell us a bit about yourself. What makes you tick? Your pros and cons, loves and hates? How does it all apply when you tackle a project, whether it’s Age of Bronze or something else entirely?
ES: I think creation is one of the most important things in the world, what all humans should be spending their time and energy on. By creation I don’t just mean works of art, but connections between people, scientific discoveries, anything that adds to or illuminates life in any aspect. I think destruction is generally wrong, although destruction for the purpose of regeneration has its place.
I dislike misspelling and execrable grammar; especially the misuse of “hopefully” and mispronunciation of “often.”
I think dedication to and striving for excellence is important. I think clarity is important. I think truth is important.
These things apply both to life and to creating comics (well, except for the mispronunciation of “often”—that doesn’t apply to comics). They apply to creating anything.
SGS: Are you working on anything else, and if not do you plan to? What kind of projects spring to mind when you think of working on Age of Bronze being behind you? Something else historical; or sci-fi perhaps?
ES: There are ALWAYS other projects. Age of Bronze is, of course, the big kahuna. I just did an illustration for a Boilerplate book by Paul Guinan and a short story written by Bill Willingham for Fables #59. I’m working on a short story for an Uncle Scrooge special anniversary issue for 2008. And there’s nearly always an Oz project shrieking for my attention somewhere in the background. I’d like to mention IDW’s publication last year of my five Oz graphic novels in one omnibus volume, Adventures in Oz, which is probably the definitive printing of those projects.
SGS: You’ve received two Eisner Awards for Age of Bronze, right? How did it feel to be appreciated by your peers in such a manner?
ES: Yeah, two, among a slew of nominations. I usually don’t pay attention to awards much, unless I’m nominated. And even if I get an award, it usually pales in significance to me beside whatever the award is for. But the Eisner Awards, which I considered as recognition from my peers for the hard work it takes to make Age of Bronze happen, mean an awful lot to me. They also really boosted sales of the graphic novels and spurred the foreign edition deals, so those things were really great, too.
SGS: This kind of question is inevitable: What would you say your writing and art influences are as a whole? Is there any particular creator/s that stands out to you, past or present?
ES: Ugh, I hate getting this question. It’s impossible to give my influences as a whole. I can offer some creators whose work I really admire or have admired in the past. But family, friends, teachers, and things other than writing and art, I believe, have had profound influences on who I am and, thus, on what my work ends up being.
Writing: L. Frank Baum, George MacDonald, Eloise Jarvis McGraw, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Milton Caniff, Herge, Walt Kelly, Dave Sim, Walter Van Tilburg Clark, William Golding
Art: John R. Neill, Frederick Richardson, Winsor McCay, Robert Lawson, Johnny Gruelle, Alphonse Mucha, Milton Caniff, Walt Kelly
SGS: Tell us about Hungry Tiger Press, as well as your partner David Maxine. What’s Hungry Tiger up to these days? Could you please tell us some the Wizard of Oz material that’s being published?
ES: Hungry Tiger Press is a publishing company that David Maxine and I began in 1994. I intended to publish Age of Bronze through HTP and David wanted to publish Oz books and related material. Although Age of Bronze ended up at Image Comics, we published many Oz and Oz-related books. In the late 1990s David also began publishing music cds. I left the company in 2002 in order to concentrate on Age of Bronze, but David is still running HTP, and still hires me on a freelance basis to provide artwork. The most recent project I did was a cover for a new edition of Ruth Plumly Thompson’s Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz.
SGS: What is your dream project? I mean, if you had unlimited time and resources in any medium you wish… what would you do?
ES: Age of Bronze. I’m not kidding.
SGS: Eric, thank you so much for participating in this! I leave the parting words in your capable hands. The floor is yours, sir.
ES: Thank you, Steve. I think it’s really important that everyone has a working knowledge of the story of the Trojan War. It’s just too important a story in our world not to know. I don’t insist that everyone reads Age of Bronze—there are plenty of versions out there available. But Age of Bronze is straightforward and created with a 21st century readership in mind, so it’s not difficult to follow or understand. And it’s not hampered by any Hollywood silliness. Give it a try.
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Please visit the following websites for more information:
Age of Bronze: http://age-of-bronze.com/aob/index.shtml
Eric Shanower: http://ericshanower.com/es/index.shtml
Hungry Tiger Press: http://www.hungrytigerpress.com/index.shtml
For supplemental graphics from Age of Bronze, be sure to visit here.
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