Superhero-glyphs are coming!

07 May 2018  |   0 Comments   |    |  

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Superhero-glyphs and Geek mythology

In the family "take at face value" we ask Josh Ln, american graphic designer and illustrator who had fun imagining "superhero-glyphs". Totally influenced by geek culture, he offers us a uchronic and eccentric reinterpretation of Egyptian history.

Thus we find the Avengers, Zelda and other Ninja Turtles at the time of the pharaohs, all drawn according to the graphic beauty canons of the time. Although it is a humorous project, it could ask us about the contemporary construction of our myths.

The Egyptians had Ra, the Greeks had Zeus, and today the Americans have Superman. This idea may seem a little "coffee strong" to some, but it is very popular in the geek world of comic book fans. According to the latter, superheroes compose their own mythology. The filiation with the ancient heroes is often obvious, to the point that some characters are simple heroes or demigods recycling (Thor, Hercule...). The narrative processes of these narratives declines to infinity the adventures without the hero getting old is not without reminding the Homeric stories.

At this stage, we will guide you towards reading the book "Myths and Superheroes" to deepen the subject...

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But why did the Egyptians draw their characters in profile?

In egyptian iconography, this profile representation was not intended to represent reality as best as possible, but to respect the religious beauty canon in force at the time. The objective was to present to the gods the bodies of men as a whole. Thus each member was drawn under the angle which made it possible to see it at best. The faces, arms and legs were drawn in profile, but the eyes and bust remained drawn from the front.
In the end it was a question of guaranteeing a good reincarnation of the person represented. Indeed, it was believed at the time that if a leg or arm was missing from the performance, there would be a strong chance of being reincarnated amputated.

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Real hieroglyphics

The hieroglyphic script of ancient Egypt is, with the cuneiform script, one of the oldest in the world. It was the writing used on the ornamental inscriptions of temples and monuments, generally engraved in stone, and often religious, hence the name given by the Greeks: "ieros" meaning sacred and "glyphein" meaning engraving. Glyphein that should not be confused with his close relative "graphein" from which the name of our agency is derived, meaning both "write" and "paint".

These graphic signs of figurative and symbolic origin take their model from what could be found around the Nile: animals, plants, landscapes, pharaohs, stars...

As a result, hieroglyphics have often been imagined as rebus. In reality it would be more logical to say that some rebuses function like hieroglyphs, but while waiting for the hieroglyphs are in no way games or riddles, it is indeed a writing.
These images are subject to a triple constraint. First the calibration, since all the signs are the same size, then these signs are grouped in the form of cartridges or lines, and finally there is a reading direction: all the images are oriented towards the beginning of the text, whatever the writing direction.

In other civilizations, these figurative or pictographic characters have generally stylised over time to become ideograms. This is the case with Chinese writing.

 

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Source: https://joshln.com/portfolio/207/

 

 


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