1. The Shield of Achilles:
This is probably the most epic artifact of the Ancient Greek Myth. Homer dedicates an entire passage of the Iliad to the shield’s forging by God Hephaestus.

The passage describing the shield is an early example of ekphrasis (a literary description of a work of visual art) that influenced many later poems. It is one of the Iliad’s most fascinating sections where the intricate adornment of the shield is described in full detail. The peaceful scenes depicted serve as a contrast to the violence of the epic, and the extended pause of the narration is as the calm before the storm.

And a personal wink to another fascination of mine is the use of the Predestination Paradox. I’ll leave it to that cause again I don’t want to spoil Part 2…

So I hope you enjoy this new opening and the epic series that follows!

Pythia

Iris

Hercules

Hecate

Mata Leao Part 2, Behind the Scenes 

This is by far my favorite part of the story! I have been thinking of this unarmed fight sequence from the first days I came up with Theoktonia's concept. It was supposed to be told in a far later issue, but hey... why wait for such an awesome event!

MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) is huge, with countless fans worldwide... I wanted to show just how old it actually is, and make a tribute to ancient Pancration.

And finally, we see a familiar face in this new prologue...

Characters

Hermides

Hades

Poseidon

Rise of the Dead, Behind the Scenes 

Have you been wondering who is that attention-wh%re guy on the site's header animation? The dude fighting whith David on who gets to pose in front of the Deimos logo is none other than Theoktonia's protagonist!

"No kidding... what's his name?" you'll say... Well that's a secret!!!

Besides revealing absolutely nothing, I would like to note the reference to Poseidon's earth-shaking trait. Poseidon was believed to be the cause of earthquakes, hence in this story when the ground shakes and the undead soldiers collapse for the heroes to escape, the next scene shows Hades asking Poseidon the reason for his interference.

It is a myth wink that I feel should not pass unnoticed.

Characters

Locations

Hermides

Hades

Poseidon

Rise of the Dead, Behind the Scenes 

Babes, zombies and splatter fun!

I remember when I discussed Theoktonia’s concept with a couple of friends, it went like this:

-Basically, Hades gets pissed off with Zeus and raises the dead to wage a divine civil war.
-So you wanna make an ancient Greek myth zombie comic??
-Hmmm pretty much…
-Totally cool!

In retrospect I must say that this simple description doesn’t do credit to the wider Theoktonia theme. But I wanted to keep the cool features of that idea, to make an enjoyably brutal and sexy comic with lots of undead offering themselves for endless splatter fun! Issue 2 is the epitome of that approach, while from issue 3 the deeper message starts to emerge.

Characters

Locations

Artifacts

Hermides

Zeus

Hermes

Poseidon

Godly Humans, Behind the Scenes 

Straight forward story telling is the trademark of Theoktonia. As the first issue ends we have few if any questions hanging in the air. The bad guy’s identity is right away revealed, the hero finds his place in the world and sets off to his crystal clear quest, and we pretty much know what to expect… Brutal pissed off vengeance!

Characters

Artifacts

Sites

Hermides

Ciricium

Aremachus

Orgy, Behind the Scenes 

If one thing is annoying about typical greek behavior it's blaming something else instead of one's self. Usually it takes the form of venting anger towards some metaphysic higher power... and the most common victims are the Virgin Mary and Jesus.

While the ancient greeks considered such behavior unthinkable, I chose to transcend historic accuracy and make a tribute to the modern day Greek. So Hermides decides it is the Goddess of Luck Tyche's fault that his day sucks, and shows off his cursing improvisation skills.

On a different note do you see any similarity between this story and KoL's prelude?

If you do you are quite the perceptive art critic, since both stories have been pencilled and inked by Francisco Paronzini, whose art we'll be having the pleasure of reading throughout the entire second Theoktonia issue.

Characters

Artifacts

Sites

Hermides

Ciricium

The Rite, Behind the Scenes 

Sophistication, deep plots, twists, enigmas are all good and cool... but sometimes so is irony, brutality and simple gore and babes!

I wanted to mock the fanatic view of Hermides (and all religious fanatics throughout history) and have him do some really psycho stuff in the name of holiness. And what best victims than a bunch of random hot nymphs?!

Basically the point of the story is to show that a proper burial is the way to put a dead soul to rest in this scenario with Hades' doors closed. I must say that I can't think of a more FUN way to show this!!

Enjoy!

Characters

Artifacts

Sites

Hermides

Ciricium

Aremachus

Pythia

Prey or Hunter, Behind the Scenes 

I know what you're thinking... this guy has some mutilation-fetish against hotties! That's so untrue, I love brutal action but I also totally hate boring canon fodder. So put these two together and you have "Prey or Hunter"!

I've covered my position concerning such scenes in the previous story's Behind the Scenes. What I wish to point out this time is a detail that might confuse the careful reader. In page 7 the hero is being addressed at with a weird title. It is no error and he is as confused as you must have been. It's just a cliff hanger for next week's revelation!

Characters

Artifacts

Sites

Hermides

Ciricium

Pythia

Hecate

Prophecy, Behind the Scenes 

And with another notorious title and wink to all horror movie aficionados we conclude the brutality fest. The story now takes a different course, towards the main goal of the entire Theoktonia/KoL saga. Just as Hermides sets off to distant Assyria and Ea's zigurat, so we will explore with him a different culture with not so different gods...

Concerning ancient Greek myth I have to say that this story's deviation is the notion of Athena breaking her chastity oath and the romance with Hermes. Gaia's oath is ancient Greek "canon"!

Characters

Artifacts

Sites

Hermides

Ciricium

Hecate

Poseidon

Aremachus

Evaristus

Alliances, Behind the Scenes 

Consider the sheer epicness of Drizzt Do'Urden by R.A. Salvatore. Drizzt was created as the exotic weapons master secondary character who would train the young barbarian protagonist. He ended up becoming one of the most widely recognized figures of epic fantasy.

One of the differences between Theoktonia and KoL is the fact that with the first I didn't have a very tight idea of how the plot would unfold. I mean I had concluded on the general ending, but the path towards it was pretty vague.

What does all this have to do with Alliances? The satyr of course! He was born in my mind only when I was writing issue 2 and was looking for a comic relief filler character. Well... his potential is huge and he turned out to be my favorite character of Theoktonia.

That is to say that when creating something on the fly it might be so spontaneous it can work better than an overplanned ahead solution.

On a different note, the port city of Piraeus has a personal meaning to me as it is the place where I was born and grew up.

And finally I wish to welcome the talented Revin from House of Imagi on Theoktonia! We will be enjoying his dynamic pencils/inks on issue 3 and on KoL's Sagas: Joseph.

Characters

Artifacts

Sites

Hermides

Ciricium

Evaristus

The Journey, Behind the Scenes 

"Mortal men are not to oppose the will of the Gods..."

With this cryptic apology-rationalization of Captain Evaristus I hint the reasoning behind the crew's sudden hatred towards Aremachus.

Though it will become clear in the next chapter, I wanted to say that the inspiration for this story's situation comes from the Odyssey. As Odysseus suffers for years the hatred of God Poseidon in his sea voyages so does Aremachus, but for currently untold reasons...

How could a satyr annoy the God of the Seas??

Characters

Artifacts

Sites

Hermides

Ciricium

Itthobal

Dorothea

Nergal, Behind the Scenes 

This story is the heart of the KoL/Theoktonia saga. Hermides is surprised to find that the same war that plagues his country is reaching a distant land too. Only the protagonists of the war have just different names. The gods are universal like mankind's worries, dreams and sentiments.

About the weird dialogue in page 1, it is Phoenecian and the "Baxtel" naming is not Aremachus' name or title, but just the closest word for master.

Characters

Artifacts

Sites

Hermides

Ciricium

Itthobal

Dorothea

Apollo

Ares

Deimos

Phobos

Daughter of Hecate, Behind the Scenes 

Does this story keep on slapping you in the face or what?!

If you were wondering since the beginning who were all these uber cool guys in the Theoktonia wallpapers, it's time to find out. This story is one summit of major players! Right when you think the situation has climaxed you are proved wrong...

It's a stress building scenario that I enjoyed very much writing and hope you will find stimulating!

And do let me know what you think of Deimos!

Characters

Artifacts

Sites

Hermides

Ciricium

Itthobal

Dorothea

Apollo

Ares

Deimos

Phobos

Athena

Phoebus Apollo, Behind the Scenes 

Does the art in this story look familiar? That is because KoL's Verry Wong has returned to Theoktonia (remember the awesome Theotkonia prelude?) to do the pencils/inks for issue 4.

And along with his art he brings a whole lot of winks to KoL. This is basically a KoL story and one I was killing myself struggling to keep my lips shut about! And now that the time has arrived I will let the HUGE revelations come from the very pages...

Characters

Artifacts

Sites

Hermides

Ciricium

Ares

Dorothea

Athena

Alkimachus Athena, Behind the Scenes 

If there is a question hanging in the air about the religious message of KoL/Theoktonia, then this story comes to answer it.

Writing dialogue for the Goddess of Wisdom was an intimidating task. So I chose to make a reference to another Theoktonia dialogue that gave me shivers, the brave words of Hercules when he followed the path that knowingly led to his death but kept his ideals intact. So I instead chose to have the line "if we have come to value our existence above the ideals we represent, then our time's dusk is rightfully upon us" be originally Athena's.

And as you will see in the next week's story, the Prelude's prophecized duel of Hercules/Achilles has not happened yet ;)

Characters

Artifacts

Sites

Champions of Hades, Behind the Scenes 

I just love prequels!!! So much that even when it comes to Star Wars I'm one of those heretics who prefer the Prequel trilogy to the Original one... 

Prequels give you a deeper view to a story that was obviously succesfull enough to ask for a "sequel". So the interest is there, and the audience is open for a deeper exploration of the lore.

To all those who wondered "Is Odysseys evil?! How could he expose children to this horror???", well I hope you see him now with compassion...

And my favorite part of the story is seeing the greeting of Achilles by Hercules again, but from a reversed angle. This is afterall what this story is all about.

Different perspectives...

Characters

Artifacts

Sites

Hermides

Ciricium

Dorothea

Eosphoros

Aremachus

Caiphas

Babylon, Behind the Scenes