What historical fiction is for is not, in fact, to tell the story of what happened in the past. It is for telling the story we want to hear – about the way we believe things were among men and women in a plainer, starker time, when we were not prevented from ourselves. The more keenly an author or artist realizes this, the better.
Die! Akhnaten Die! is a set of 20 consecutive woodcuts that retells the story plainly, wordlessly, in a mythical Wild West. It is as simple and bare as possible. Here, the story told is Man against the Gods, a skeleton-headed rabble of undead. Man succeeds, then Man is destroyed, and all must burn.
Go and see it; it will take you no time at all. It is, I think, going to be my favorite of however many of these works I come upon.
L.T. Patridge 