Yaddith Times

Camelot 3000 by Mike W. Barr

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I first read this 12-issue series back in college, when a friend loaned me the actual separate issues. I was impressed by it then, & I'm still impressed today by its audacity of imagination. I'm not a regular reader of graphic novels, but anything that combines the prophesied return of Arthur with far-future alien invasion will get (& probably hold) my attention pretty quickly.

I took a while getting through this one, because I was savoring the artwork along with the sheer weirdness of the narrative. There is also much truly Arthurian flavor to this, with detailed references to some of the more obscure stories.

New readers should know that this series is somewhat dated. It came out in the mid-1980s, & imposes the flavor of that time onto the year 3000. The president of the US is a Reaganesque gunslinger, the Soviet Union is still very much alive, & nothing much has changed with either Communist China or Africa. Certain plot twists (no spoilers!) which were pretty radical at the time now seem quite tame, and the overall treatment of the female characters leaves a good bit to be desired by current standards.

That said, I'd still recommend this series to lovers of the Arthurian legend, & particularly to those who are also SF fans.







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