Newer graphic novels, however, are not really 'comic books' in the popular sense, but works of superior imagination and talent that seek a 'mature audience' through more intricate story telling and visual design. Those who grew up in the 1940s and 1950s may be familiar with the Classics Illustrated series of comic-book or graphic novel adaptations of the world's great literature – guilty pleasures for some even today. Frank Miller's 300, in following this tradition, convincingly reinterprets Sparta for the modern age.'KUNCH' 'GGAKK' 'HURKK' 'GYAA' - Frank Miller's bestselling graphic novel 300 (1998) retold one of the great stories of history - the Spartan stand at Thermopylae (480 BC).

Yet other Greeks, and those who came after them, made up for this by retelling the story of Thermopylae. Leonidas replies, “We’ve been sharing our culture with you all morning.”Īncient Sparta, a culture renowned for such epigrammatic wit, left no record written by its own authors. In one scene, Xerxes tries to convince Leonidas to surrender after the first day of fighting at the pass of Thermopylae. Moreover, Miller invents some sarcastic Spartan dialogue of his own, which would not be out of place in Sayings of the Spartans. Plutarch also notes that at Thermopylae, “When someone was saying: ‘It isn’t even possible to see the sun because of the Persians’ arrows,’ Leonidas said: ‘How pleasant then, if we’re going to fight them in the shade.’” While this particular exchange is left out of 300, the idea of Persian arrows blocking out the sun is included in a descriptive caption. Plutarch reports that when Xerxes wrote to Leonidas to surrender his arms, Leonidas replied, “Come and take them.” Miller interprets this anecdote into modern English idiom when his Leonidas tells the Persians to “come and get it.” For instance, Plutarch's Sayings of the Spartans records some of the terse, 'laconic' quips attributed to famous Spartans. Miller Captures the Laconic Spirit of the Spartansģ00 is also faithful to the Spartan ethos, as passed down in the Greco-Roman tradition. 472 BC) is the earliest example of this, just as 300 is among the most recent. Indeed, the Battle of Thermopylae, and the other engagements of the Persian wars, marked the beginning of Greek cultural stereotypes toward so-called “barbarians.' Aeschylus' contemporary tragedy The Persians (c.

300 spartans comic book