The first 8 pages of Achilles and Patroclus, written by James Washburn & illustrated by Chess Amadé Albaneze, a new queer graphic novel currently in production based on Homer's The Iliad.
Achilles and Patroclus was originally a play by James Washburn of @magpieartistsensemble, but Chess first encountered it as an opera in the Seattle Creation Lab of 2020-21. "I was in love with the text," they said. "The music too, but there was this intimate vulnerability between these characters that survived when blown up to a grand scale. It's hard to write like that. I was in love with the poetry of it all."
When James of Magpie sought to bring the text to visual life in the form of a graphic novel, he noted that "Magpie received a lot of artist applications for Achilles and Patroclus, but once we saw Chess's, there was no question in anyone's mind. Their work is visceral yet elegant - the perfect balance for a story where violence and tenderness intertwine."
For now, only these 8 pages will be made public until the project is finished and in physical print. If you'd like to read the rest of each page as they update, you can subscribe to Magpie Artists Ensemble Ko-Fi or to Chess's Patreon. If you want to peek at the paneling drafts, those are available only on Chess's Patreon.
If you would like to help bring this project to life but can't afford to financially support us, please spread this post around and give this page a follow to keep up with our announcements! Getting this project in front of more eyes is more important than you know, so thank you.
James Washburn (he/him) is a gay, trans, and disabled Storyteller-Activist born and raised in Seattle. His work is predicated on the idea that a story is best told with many voices, and he is deeply influenced by his Queer, artistic, and Polish communities, and his experiences at the intersection of marginalized identities. He takes inspiration from folklore, mythology, and queer history. His work focuses on discovering queerness in traditional stories and reimagining familiar tropes and archetypes through a queer lens.
Washburn is the Founding Artistic Director of @magpieartistsensemble, an artistic collective focused on innovative cross-disciplinary storytelling.
Chess Amadé Albaneze (he/she/they) has been creating comics since 2009, and their current projects other than A&P include the comic @hooffellas and the queer paranormal DND-style podcast @dandiesindanger. They are an American genderfluid trans masc artist, composer, and performer whose music was performed in the SO Creation Lab and whose voice work can be heard in @janellefeng's short film La Mort de Robespierre.
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