Talk:The Life Eaters

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A fact from The Life Eaters appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 23 September 2024 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the 2003 graphic novel The Life Eaters, presenting an occult-driven, hypothetical Axis victory in World War II, has been discussed in the context of its portrayal of The Holocaust?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2024/September. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/The Life Eaters.

Wikipedia

Notable?

Can this be restored? @Cunard @Daranios _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 21:27, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Piotrus: Search looks pretty promising, actually: Rechtsextremismus, Rassismus und Antisemitismus in Comics, p. 220-221, has 3/4 of a page on the comic including critical analysis. And The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Vol. 106, p. 33, seems to have a review. Unfortunately I only get snippets, but those do have commentary: "The Life Eaters has all the drama, scope, and power of one of the old Norse sagas, for Brin is working on a grand scale here, juggling many balls, and not dropping any. There is thoughtful — and dark — speculation on how things might - have turned out if the story's premise had actually played out, how technology we take for granted now was developed in different circumstances, how world politics would have adjusted. There's a gripping storyline, and dialogue that suits all the different voices" etc. There are more hits here and here, but I checking those has to wait for someone or sometime else. Daranios (talk) 15:21, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Daranios I will be expanding this shortly based on English sources; any chance you could access and use the German source? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:03, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Piotrus (talk · contribs). Here are some sources about the subject:

De Lint, Charles (April 2004). "The Life Eaters". The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Vol. 106, no. 4. p. 33. Archived from the original on 2024-08-11. Retrieved 2024-08-11 – via Internet Archive.
The review notes: "The Life Eaters has all the drama, scope, and power of one of the old Norse sagas, for Brin is working on a grand scale here, juggling many balls, and not dropping any. ... Scott Hampton displays some expected comic book art (regular panel breakdowns, outlined figures), but most of the book is painted, magnificently bringing Brin's dark visions to life."
Di Filippo, Paul (August 2004). "On Books". Asimov's Science Fiction. Vol. 28, no. 8 #343. p. 137. Retrieved 2024-08-11 – via Internet Archive.
The review notes: "David Brin expands his award-nominated story "Thor Meets Captain America" into The Life Eaters (hardcover, $29.95, 144 pages, ISBN 1-4012-0098-2), with the aid of artist Scott Hampton, whose harsh-edged, yet graceful painted art is the perfect match for a grim tale. Hampton's palette is appropriately subdued as well, but it allows for such bright contrasting flashes as the blue of a Hindu deity."
Raiteri, Steve (March 2004). "The Life Eaters". The Life Eaters. Vol. 129, no. 4. p. 60. Archived from the original on 2024-08-11. Retrieved 2024-08-11 – via Gale.
The review notes: "Brin's desire to downplay the role of heroes and highlight the good work of the average person is notable in a field full of superheroes, but in the end it mitigates the strength of the story. Hampton's full-color paintings are realistic and often powerful."
Zaleski, Jeff (2004-01-05). "The Life Eaters". Publishers Weekly. Vol. 251, no. 1. p. 42. EBSCOhost 11844964. Archived from the original on 2024-08-11. Retrieved 2024-08-11.
The review notes: "But there's also a certain amount of heavy-handed preachiness: an inappropriately clunky vision of ash-induced global warming; a dreadfully sappy scene in which leaders of every religion put aside their differences to defend the planet; and a climactic scene in which a human is tempted by divine power that's straight out of a mid-1960s superhero comic. Fantasy artist Hampton is at his best when he gets to illustrate larger-than-life images ..."
Speer, Cindy Lynn (2003). "The Life Eaters". SF Site. Archived from the original on 2024-08-11. Retrieved 2024-08-11.
The review notes: "Fans of David Brin might find The Life Eaters strikes a familiar cord. This book was inspired by his Hugo-nominated 1986 novella, "Thor Meets Captain America." This cleverly written what-if story explores so many things. ... Scott Hampton's art is a good match for Brin's prose. I confess, I am far more used to the Sandman versions of Loki and Odin, and of the Marvel version of Thor, so seeing how he chose to portray these Aesirs was really interesting."

Cunard (talk) 08:29, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cunard Thank you, article restored and expanded :) _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:46, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Piotrus (talk · contribs), great work, thank you! Cunard (talk) 00:14, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Piotrus: Finished with the German secondary source at long last. (Google does not let me see the full chapter any more, but probably that's what has been relevant.) Daranios (talk) 15:04, 9 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 talk 02:26, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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... that the 2003 graphic novel The Life Eaters presenting an occult-driven hypothetical Axis victory in World War II has been discussed in the context of its portrayal of The Holocaust? Source: see https://doi.org/10.1007%2F978-3-319-52575-4_6 and https://doi.org/10.1080%2F21504857.2017.1355824
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Jerzy Artysz

5x expanded by Piotrus (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 516 past nominations.

_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:36, 12 August 2024 (UTC).[reply]

New enough and large enough expansion. QPQ present. I am having trouble with institutional access to the journal sources, but they would belong in those specific articles. Did some copyediting. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 17:54, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Quote from first source: "This is not to say that such a view should be taken unproblematically; the work of Dirk A. Moses, Robert Eaglestone and Dan Stone has been especially influential in highlighting the distorting effects of using the Holocaust as a paradigm for other occasions of violence. [...] For example, in Brin’s The Life Eaters, Chris is informed by Loki – who has by now deflected to the American side of the war – of the existence of camps ‘in Africa and on the great plains of Russia’, where ‘terrible magics are being made, and terrible woe’. Loki concedes that he rescued the first victims from Europe, and the relocation of these sites to non-European spaces suggest that the horrors that they represent have also shifted into a global context. This reading is underscored earlier in the story ..."[1]
Quote from second source: "By placing Nazism within a narrative dominated by cultural myths, Brin, perhaps inadvertently, underscores the way in which Nazism has come to occupy a position in our cultural imagination that is akin to that of these mythological heroes."[2]
It looks good, just adding these for editors who can't access the sources. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 17:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Copyedit tag

The article reads like it was written by a non-native English speaker, as there are lots of minor grammar errors. It would be good if a native speaker could do a thorough copyedit on it. Nosferattus (talk) 17:07, 23 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]