Finally completed P. Craig Russell's adaptation of Ring of the Nibelung, as recommended by mrp. From an execution standpoint, it earns a solid 10.0. However, my personal enjoyment of it was scaled down to an 8.5 for two reasons:

1. Russell's style has changed quite a bit from the work I'm used to seeing. It's a lot less fluid/psychadelic, and that feels a bit odd in a story about gods and magic. An early concept sketch for this adaptation was included in the back, drawn in 1978, and it was much more in line with what I expected from the series. The artwork was still phenomenal, but it was almost too meticulous.

2. I first watched Fritz Lang's 5 hour epic adaptation of this same myth,"Die Nibelungen," this past summer, and then two more time since. I even showed it to my mythology class, and they devoured it. But it stems from a different version of the myth than what Russell is working from. Lang pulled from the Germanic version while Russell pulls from an opera based on the Norse version. Thus, many of the basic plot points are the same, and most of the characters are the same in name, but the motivations and characterizations are completely different. I spent far too much time being surprised by, and often disappointed by, the source myth itself, and that distracted me from enjoying an otherwise outstanding labor of artistry and love.


So I highly recommend it for others and am a bit disappointed that I didn't get maximum enjoyment out of it, myself.