In Above the Dreamless Dead, Fairy Tale Comics editor Chris Duffy brings together an international cast of award-winning artists to provide their interpretations of "trench poetry," the literary blossoming that documented life at the front during the Great War. The title derives from the last line of Wilfrid Wilson Gibson's "The Dancer," and the volume includes the works of Gibson, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, Thomas Hardy and many more.
The collection is divided into three sections: "Call to War," "In the Trenches" and "Aftermath." Artist Sammy Harkham portrays Francis Edward Ledwidge's "War" with images of idyll unfolding into a barren wasteland of empty rooms and decaying corpses, all told from the viewpoint of a wandering dog. The lyricism and grace of Wilfred Owen receives a touching tribute from George Pratt (winner of the Eisner Award for Enemy Ace: War Idyll), who uses black-and-white acrylics to evoke fear, despair and desolation in "Greater Love" and "Dulce et Decorum est." For Owen's "The End," Danica Novgorodoff gives a minimalist spin to the final quietness of death after the long and thunderous rush of battle.
The illustrations rendered by these artists are stark and powerful, transforming the poets' words into a moving reel of emotions that relay the horror, sadness and loss from a period of history that is sometimes neglected. "In drawing comics from [these poets], the contributors are doing what we all do when faced with the words of soldiers: bearing witness to those who bear witness," writes Duffy in the introduction. "It is the least we can do." --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant