You might want to set yourself some time aside today, as here we go with Byron Preiss, Samuel Delany & Howard Chaykin's epic sci-fi graphic novel Empire.
As I've said before, Preiss was the publisher who spent most of the Bronze Age trying to create the graphic novel, and his productions are always fascinating, if flawed experiments.
He was generally keen to stay as far away from traditional comic book storytelling as possible, meaning that his books never 100% carry their ideas off, being neither fish nor fowl, and Empire does have it's flaws.
Delany tries to meld Star Wars style space opera with more 'serious' sci-fi ideas, and the result is slightly clunky, while Chaykin restricts himself ( or was restricted by Preiss ) into a three panel grid format that can't help but get a little repetitive.
But, it's a good yarn, with interesting characters, and it's Howard in his fully painted era, throwing out amazing design work like it's going out of fashion.
I bought Empire when it came out, in 1978, and have read it a lot in the decades since. It's a flawed masterpiece, I think. See what you think.
