Our Mythical Childhood Blog

“GODs’ School” is a personal project of animations, created by Gaylord Cuvillier Libessart. The series (25 episodes are planned) will be talking about the teenage life of the (among others) famous Olympic Gods and Goddesses, and the mythical monsters, who are attending the “Mount Olympus” school.

The “Divine Students” will be: Eris, Hera, Sfiga, Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Aphrodite, Hades, Persephone, Demeter, Artemis, Apollo, Paris, Medusa, Ares, Hephaestus, Amphirite, Dionysus, Hestia, Nike, Hermes, Hecate, Eos, Iris, Khione, Tyche, Hygieia, Morpheus, and Cassandra.

On the Internet we can already find the official introduction to the “GODs’ School”:

We can also meet some of the characters that will appear in the episodes.

Recently, the “GOD’s School Wiki” was also created – there we find out, that Eris will be the main character of the animation.

If you are interested in how the work on the “GODs’ School” series looks like and who will dubbing the main characters, we recommend you to follow their social media. 🙂

Found & elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• “GODs’ School” on YouTube – link
• “GODs’ School” on Instagram- link
• “GODs’ School” on Tumblr – link
• “GODs’ School” on Facebook – link

Dear All,

We wish to send you Our Mythical Greetings on the International Children’s Day!

This is the best day to invite you to explore Our Mythical Childhood Survey – a database of classical references in the works of children’s and young adults’ culture – a joint task of Our Mythical Team and many engaged contributors and experts:

http://www.omc.obta.al.uw.edu.pl/myth-survey

On the Antipodean Odyssey Blog you can find also a post by Liz Hale on the big opening of the Survey during Our Mythical Workshops, on May 15, 2018, in Warsaw:

https://antipodeanodyssey.wordpress.com/2018/06/01/quaerite-et-invenietis-surveying-classics-in-childrens-literature/ 

Have a Good Time with Our Mythical Childhood! 

 

Post by Katarzyna Marciniak

“Ready Player One” is a new movie directed by Steven Spielberg (worldwide premiere: March 2018), based on the science-fiction novel by Ernest Cline (2011):

The movie talks about the vision of the world in the future, in 2045, where people use a massive virtual reality called “OASIS” to escape from the real life. The author of the “OASIS” – James Halliday, before his death decides to announce a contest for the players and give his entire property to the first person who will find the “Easter Egg” hidden in virtual reality.  Then the whole world throws itself into the challenge:

The creators of the film decided to put into it many references to well-known pop-culture works, such as (inter alia) “Back to the Future”, “Batman”, or “Robocop”, but they also took some inspirations from the Greek mythology. One of the movie characters was named after the Greek Goddess of the hunt – Artemis. It is Samantha Evelyn Cook, a 19-year-old girl,  who as a player of “OASIS” is called Art3mis. As we can already guess, the girl is hunting for the “Easter Egg” – she is also very brave, independent, and intelligent character.

The Funko company – creators of licensed vinyl pop-figures, produced a doll inspired by the Art3mis character (see below):

Found by Dorota Bazylczyk

Elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• The Official Movie Site – link
• “Ready Player One” in IMDb – link
• “Ready Player One” on Twitter – @readyplayerone, link
• The Official Website of Fanko – link
• “Ready Player One: 138 Easter Eggs and References in the Movie”:

“Zwierzokracja” [“Animalocracy”] is a recently (April 2018) published Polish non-fiction big format illustrated book. It was designed by Ola Woldańska-Płocińska, a Polish illustrator and designer.

The book presents the animal rights, the history of human-animal relations and so on. On two spreadsheets we can see the classical elements: the first one is dedicated to the cult of cats in ancient Egypt, the other – to the Greek philosophers’ approach towards eating meat. Living in the 6th century BC Pythagoras was a vegetarian, but Aristotle (4th century BC) said that animals were to be used – and eaten – by man. That is why he is depicted by the author with a big sausage! The part in question is entitled “The Philosophers’ Duel” and the winner is clearly indicated by the author. Although Aristotle is chronologically later, it is Pythagoras the vegetarian whose “environmental” view concludes the section and leaves the young readers with the lasting and animal-friendly message.

Found by Krzysztof Rybak

Elaborated by Krzysztof Rybak

All the photos of the book were taken by the author of this post.

See more:

• About “Zwierzokracja” on Publicat publisher website [POLISH] – link
• “Zwierzokracja” on Strefa Psotnika – link
• Ola Woldańska-Płocińska’s Official website [ENGLISH]- link
• Interview with Ola Woldańska-Płocińska on Culture.pl [ENGLISH] – link

A new series about mermaids has appeared on Freeform TV on March 29, 2018 – it is called “Siren”, and it talks about the relations between people and sirens, that has a very long history in a coastal town called Bristol Cove.

The main character of the series – Ben Pownall, is a marine biologist from a rich local family, who had an opportunity to meet the sirens already in the past. In one of the episodes Ben meets Ryn – a siren swimming to the shore, looking for her sister that was trapped into the fishing nets. It comes out that the lost siren was taken into the military laboratory and became an object of experiments.

Thus, mythology combines with an animal protection theme, and we see a lot of beautiful underwater views and amazing mermaids who – however – may behave like predators at some circumstances. And yes, they do sing, and they are very attractive for sailors. 🙂

Found by Dr. Hanna Paulouskaya

Elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• Read about “Siren” in the IMDb – link.
• “Siren” on Freeform – link.
• Austern, Linda; Naroditskaya, Inna, “Music of the Sirens”, Indiana University Press, United States, 2006.
• Peraino, Judith, “Listening to the Sirens: Musical Technologies of Queer Identity from Homer to Hedwig”, University of California Press, Los Angeles, 2005.
• Ventura, Varla, “Among the Mermaids: Facts, Myths, and Enchantments from the Sirens of the Sea”, Weiser Books, San Francisco, 2013.

THE UNIVERSAL SEA – PURE OR PLASTIC?! is an exhibition opened on 22nd of April, 2018, at the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko (curator: Nicole F. Loeser; coordinators: Weronika Elertowska, Leszek Golec).

The exhibition is aimed on publicising the problem of pollution of the seas and presents the artworks of the top five winners of the international competition organised by the Centre.

The artists show that not only animals are in danger, but the pollution harms mythical creatures living under the water. We can see sirens-sculptures made from rubbish or for example a beautiful transparent plastic Aphrodite coming from the sea.

Found by Dr. Hanna Paulouskaya

Elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• [1] Sarah Julig, “Sirens Net – by Sarah Julig”, 02.02.2018 – link
• Deep Femme Futures, “OGYGIA – by deep femme futures”, 17.02.2018 – link (1), link(2)
• Noel Kassewitz, “Children’s Book: The Ocean Adventures of Pinni, Tursi, and Mydas: Plastic Danger”, 09.02.2018 – link
• Ella Schofield Lak, “The Myth of the Mermaid – Greed VS Sacrifice – by Ella Schofield Lake”, 09.02.2018 – link
• Aleksandra Ławicka Cuper, “VENUS – by Alex Lawicka Cuper & Alain Lapicoré”, 01.02.2018 – link
• The Official Website of the Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko – link
• The Official Press Release about the exhibition – link
• The Universal Sea on Twitter: @universal_sea
• The Universal Sea on Facebook: @theuniversalsea

The fans of Greek Mythology can enjoy a new novel by the American writer Madeline Miller, whose retelling of Achilles’ fate (“The Song of Achilles”, 2011) has been a huge success since its publication and it won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2012:

The new novel is entitled “Circe”. It was published on April 10, 2018, and it retells the story of the most famous enchantress of Classical Mythology:

Here you can listen to the Author reading from her book:

Nunc est legendum!

For more information see for example:

• Madeline Miller’s website: http://madelinemiller.com/tag/circe/ (also the source of the covers)
• Review on “The Guardian” by Alex Preston: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/08/circe-madeline-miller-homer-odyssey-retelling-review
• Review on “The New York Times” by Alexandra Alter: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/books/madeline-miller-circe-novel.html

Found by Katarzyna Marciniak

This week we want to present you another book created by Piotr Dobry & Łukasz Majewski, titled “Była sobie dziewczynka” [“There Was a Girl”]. The book was recently (March 2018) published in Poland by Wydawnictwo Tadam. The official age range of the publication is 8+.

This time, the authors decided to talk about the life of women all over the centuries. The book has 25 chapters devoted to the fate of women and girls from different ages, cultures and countries. In the book we can read (among other matters) about the life of women in Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome (chapters from 3-5).

 

The last, twenty-sixth chapter of “Była sobie dziewczynka” is titled “Ty” [“You”], and its aims is to show to the young readers, that now their future should lie in their hands.

Found by Dorota Bazylczyk

Elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• About  “Była sobie dziewczynka” on Strefa Psotnika – link 
• About  “Była sobie dziewczynka” on Zaczytana – link
• About  “Była sobie dziewczynka” on Enter the Room –  link
• About  “Była sobie dziewczynka” on Magiczny Świat Książki – link 
• A few sources about Women in Antiquity:
  • Richard Hawley, Barbara Levick, “Women in Antiquity: New Assessments”, Routledge, 1995.
  • Stephanie Lynn Budin, Jean Macintosh Turfa, “Women in Antiquity: Real Women across the Ancient World”, Routledge, 2016.
  • Janet H. Tulloch, “A Cultural History of Women in Antiquity”, Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.

 

 

 

“Ancyklopek” (“The Little Ancyclops”) is a Polish three-book cycle (so far…) with the text by Piotr Dobry and the ilustrations by Łukasz Majewski, published in 2016 by TADAM:

• Ancyklopek – 1 – Świat okiem Ancyklopka (The World through the Eye of the Little Ancyclops)

• Ancyklopek – 2 – Wszystkie psoty Ancyklopka (All the Pranks of the Little Ancyclops)

• Ancyklopek – 3 – Ancyklopek na placu zabaw (The Little Ancyclops at a Playground)

All three parts feature the Little Ancyclops and they are ajdusted to the perception of a small child (for example, the first part is in black-and-white). The authors draw on the potential of the ancient myth: for example, the readers observe the Little Ancyclops in the sandpit and they learn that the Cyclops are very talented builders.

Indeed, to confirm, it is enough to have a look at the “Cyclopean Wall” at Mycenae;-) (phot. by Athinaios at English Wikipedia):

The books are funny and simple, however, they convey a serious message of tollerance and acceptance for other beings.

Read more:

• https://www.komiks.gildia.pl/komiksy/ancyklopek/1 (also the source of the covers above)
• https://www.facebook.com/ancyklopek/
• You can find more pictures and an interesting review (in Polish) on the blog by Dzika Jabłoń: https://dzikajablon.wordpress.com/2016/11/24/cynamon-ancyklopek/

Found by Katarzyna Marciniak

Robin Kaplan, known as The Gorgonist, is an illustrator dealing with children’s books, games, and comics. The artist has just finished creating her first book with Penguin USA [1]. Recently, she also lent her illustration, titled “The Lonely Gorgon”, for the cover of upcoming anthology “Making Monsters”, dedicated to new literary works inspired by the ancient monsters (prepared by the Institute of Classical Studies & Futurefire.net).

On Kaplan’s website, titled “The Gorgonist – Monstrously Charming Comics & Illustration” , we can find many interesting works related to Classical Antiquity and mythology. We encourage you to have a look at them! 🙂

Here are just a few examples:

• Hydra
• Pegasus
• Phoenix
• Nymphs
• Dryad

Found by Katarzyna Marciniak (debt to Twitter:) )

Elaborated by Dorota Bazylczyk

See more:

• [1] Read more about The Gorgonist – link
• “The Gorgonist – Monstrously Charming Comics & Illustration” Website
• Read more about the upcoming anthology “Making Monsters” – link 
• Publication titled “Accessing the Future – A Disability-Themed Speculative Fiction Anthology” (Lulu.com, 2015) by Djibril al-Ayad & Kathryn Allan, with the cover of The Gorgonist – link
• “Stuff We Love: The Gorgonist’s monstrous, nerdy, and charming art” by Lisa Granshaw (Oct 6, 2017) – link
• The Gorgonist‘s illustrations for children’s books – link
• “Ushala” comic by The Gorgonist – link
• The Gorgonist‘s Blog – link
• The Gorgonist on Facebook – link
• The Gorgonist on Twitter – link