It Is A Circle Blog

I first encountered Oghme through Twitter – which is a great place to make random connections and encounter new and interesting stuff. Being partial to Irish mythology myself, I was intrigued by Oghme. The art is striking, the writing engaging. So, I pounced on Cathbad and Mirlikovir for an interview.

Bryn: I see that both you and Mirlikovir are French, so I was wondering what drew you to working with figures from Irish mythology?

Oghme: Well, we’re from Bretagne, the Celtic part of France, facing Wales. It’s an ancient Celtic country, with a language of its own (Breton), and  has been part of France since the end of the middle ages. But the Breton language persisted till our days and our culture is closely related to that of other Celtic countries, aka Wales, Man, Ireland, Galice…  We’ve been fond of the Cuchulainn epic for a long time, and Mirlikovir (illustrator at Oghme Comics), who has specialized in working with  museums and archaeologists, is as close a specialist of the Celtic Iron Age cultures as can be. Working together on an adaptation of the Cuchulainn epic to Comics has been on our mind for a long time. And as Cathbad (scriptwriter) is fluent in English, we made the choice very
early on to release our comics both in English and French.

Bryn: Of all the characters you are working with, who is your favourite?

Oghme: This one is easy. Setanta !! Setanta is Cuchulainn’s childhood name. And  it’s funny as at the beginning of our projects, we were focused on the telling of the Cuchulainn epic. Not the “Setanta epic”. The main source for this series of tales (also called the Red Branch epic) is a text known under the name of  “Cattle Raid of Cooley”, in which Cuchulainn plays a central part. In this story, Cuchulainn is already a grown up (at least as grown up as can be at age 16) and defeats the armies of four of the provinces of Ireland, united against the northern province of Ulster. We very soon figured that we were more interested in telling how Cuchulainn would become what he was, a very complex and violent character from the Iron Age, than we were in retelling the war which follows the Cattle Raid. So we went for his childhood instead. And even if  some medieval sources mention Cuchulainn’s youth and early adolescence, there’s almost nothing concerning his early childhood. We liked the challenge of trying to figure it out in our own way. Setanta is our hero, our main character, our favorite, no questioning that. But Fergus, Cuchulainn’s stepfather, Amergin the bard & warrior,  Conchobar (Connor Mac Nesssa) the king of Ulster, Dechtire (Cuchulainn’s  Mother), Ferdiad (Cuchulainn’s “brother in arms”) are very interesting characters too. The Gods Oghme and Morrigan play a huge part in our telling of this epic, and we’ve become quite fond of them. And there’s little Bairrfhionn, a made up character acting as Setanta’s young pal. We’ve learned to love the young brat.

Bryn: How did you come to be working together?

Cathbad : I first met with Mirlikovir’s brother, Erwan, who is an amazing artist and old friend of mine (and whose black and white drawings are totally amazing). Mirlikovir has been working for 15 years now as an illustrator for history books and museums, focusing on three periods : Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Napoleonic wars era. But whenever he has time, he focuses on the Iron Age period, and the Epic of Cuchulainn has always been his favourite source of inspiration. He would come to my place at weekends with gorgeous illustrations of Celtic heroes, gods, places… hundreds of them. And one day, he brought with him a series of illustrations representing a young kid playing with a hurling stick and a ball. This was totally new. This Cuchulainn as a kid, Setanta, was a genuine Comic Books character. I slept on the idea, contacted Mirlikovir the next morning to ask him if he would like to try and tell the Cuchulainn’s epic from a child’s point of view, in a comic series format. Mirlikovir was in instantly, this was four years ago. Since then we’ve been dedicating all of our spare time to bringing Setanta to life.

You can read more here –

CucuC – Little Brute from the Iron Age (http://cucuc.oghme.com)
Cuchulainn – The Hound of Ulster (http://cuchulainn.oghme.com)