Grand Designs: Reviewing ‘StarHenge’ #6 By Liam Sharp
by Olly MacNamee
Summary
Liam Sharp’s cosmic, Celtic ‘StarHenge’ #6 delivers more elegant, textured art with a prosaic narrative that offers up plenty of answers to questions posed throughout this series. A sci-fi fantasy that delivers high-end art in a medium often viewed as low-brow culture. Those who think this way, still, ain’t read this comic, it would seem.
Overall
10/10StarHenge #6 sees the closing of the first meaty chapter of this Arthurian/Sci-Fi saga. And after last issue’s concise trip through the Arthurian legend, we come to Arthur’s end and his iconic battle with Mordred. Here stretched out to mythical proportions as writer/artist. Liam Sharp, who puts his own spin on Arthur’s end of days. Along for the ride is Taliesin, a rather obscure character from the legend, but an integral part of the story across time that Sharp has plotted.
Across the whole series, Sharp has been bold with the form each issue has taken. And this latest issue is no different, combining grandiose prose with equally grandiose art, and mixing it up with more artwork from his daughter, Matylda McCormack-Sharp, who is evolving into an artist in her own right, with a discernible style of her own. Sharp delivers page after page that, on their own, could stand in any gallery. Particularly a double-page spread that captures Merlin transforming into a noble stag. Captured like some modern day Robert Burns, Edward Charles Williams, or any number of Victorian era landscape painters. Painters who, like Sharp, capture an idyllic rural England that is more fantasy than reality. But, the textures employed by Sharp mimic the rich textures and tones of oil pain to perfection.
As the issue progresses we get revelations that will have huge consequences moving forward, with the next volume hinting at more sci-fi as our story, and main cast of characters from across the different timelines beginning to converge. But for now, Sharp offers a good deal of answers to questions that both the reader, and our narrator and hero, Amber, have had throughout.
Sharp should be very proud of this labour of love. A man, as I can attest, who has had a lifelong love of Arthurian literature, who’s deep knowledge of the subject matter allows him to drive a narrative both original and honouring the many, many tales across the ages. Heavy Metal meets Alfred, Lord Tennyson/High Victoriana with a good deal of Robert E Howard in both style and subsense and out now from Image Comics.
