English History

Warren Ellis has written an account of the battle of Crecy, which has great black and white art from Raulo Caceres and is called Crecy.

The narrator is one of the nameless archers who make up the English army, and by the end of this graphic novel you will know a lot about archery. The battle itself is famous for really beginning the decline of the knight as a weapon of war.

12,000 English faced 86,000 French knights and mercenaries. By the end of the battle somewhere between 40 and 400 English soldiers had been killed, while the French lost 30,000 troops. This figure included eleven princes, 1,200 knights, King Philip's brother Charles, and King John of Bohemia.

The English longbow had triumphed and would pave the way for other missile weapons which still dominate battlefields today.

The story itself is well told and only takes up around 44 pages, and the narrator is an interesting fellow who is almost outside time as he looks to the future, and the past.

If you wanted to be critical you could say that it is an English writer looking back to a time when England actually mattered in the world, but I wont. Overall a great read.