Merry Men by Robert Rodi was interesting enough while I was reading but ultimately mostly forgettable and a skim read most of it.

I loved everything about Robin Hood in my young years, and I was curious to WATCH a lgbt re-telling of the story. OF COURSE I WAS!

I am not obsessed with graphic novels. But from time to time I am in the mood for something like this. It was Okay, but it didn't WOW me

I wasn't a big fan of the art style of this graphic novel, but I did really appreciate the creativity of the storytelling and the idea of a gay Robin Hood.

An enjoyable read taken from a intriguing concept. I did have difficulty at times telling some of the Merry Men apart, but I suppose that's going to happen when you have a lot of buff dudes with beards in a comic. I would definitely be interested in reading more adventures of this Robin Hood and his Merry Men!

I received a digital ARC from the publisher via Netgalley.

I thought this was a pretty cool idea. What if Robin Hood's Merry Men were actually truly merry (or gay) men? Unfortunately, this swings back and forth between poor political intrigue and terrible slash fiction with a bunch of adult gay men acting all catty and jealous as if this was a high school drama. The dialogue is stilted and wooden. The book is full of multiple page flashbacks of characters that are barely even in the story. I'll give this perks for being LGBTQ+, but that's it. This book was just plain awful from an established author with a pretty good body of work.

Overall I think the idea of the graphic novel is very good and I enjoyed the art style, but I just couldn't get into it. Maybe it was cause with the version I had quite some text was way too small to read and it was hard for me to follow the story. Other than that it was also just not really anything. It had historical elements and then the romantic relationships between the Merry Men in between, but I didn't really care about the story or the characters.

I'd still recommend it to people who enjoy the legend of Robin Hood and are more into that period of history. It's definitely an interesting twist and I would love to see more historic interpretations like this one.

As the back copy notes, this queer interpretation of the Robin Hood legend is "based on scholarly and historical speculation about what's really behind the outlaw's legend", and at the end of the story there are several interesting profiles of historical queer people in the British Isles.

Those profiles were perhaps the most interesting part of the book for me. The story itself was very dense; this is not a quick read, despite the graphic novel format, and it can't seem to decide if it wants to be a serious examination of the politics of the time or if it wants to be a silly romance with a lot of kissing, half-naked people, and innuendo. 

Those two focuses are in opposition; the story goes back and forth between them and in the end doesn't really deeply develop either. The villain was also significantly over the top - not just your everyday serial killer, he also skinned one of his victims and made that skin into a vest. As one does...

I like the Robin Hood legends, and I've also read some queer adaptations of those legends that I've really enjoyed. Sadly, this was not one of them.

I really enjoyed how Rodi took historical elements (classic Robin Hood) and turned it on it's head with a queer group of merry men. That said, the actual storyline was confusing as it swung between political plotting, relationship woes and squabbling, and hanky panky. I did enjoy Rodi's vision of showing us how homosexuality was viewed during Robin Hood's time, and would recommend that readers go into this realizing that it's much more than just a quick read.

Great – let's all sully traditional English legends with homosexuality, and trannyism. Yes, the story's so old (hat) that I wanted something new done to it – but not this. Artwork 3+ stars, ethos 0.

Much like Garth Marenghi, Robert Rodi knows writers who use subtext – and they're all cowards. Taking the gay reading of the Robin Hood myth and running with it is not a bad idea: 'merry' as a synonym for 'gay' works, and it does fit with the whole idea of Robin as a companion of Richard the Lionheart. But while bringing Richard's queerness to the fore is a nice fit with history, I'm less comfortable with the way this strives to preserve his baseless reputation for chivalry towards Saracen prisoners, offloading the atrocities on to a Guy of Gisbourne who's pretty much a giggling cliché of a serial killer. Sure, there's always going to be awkward fits when the legend runs into historical realities, but presenting Prince John as using homophobic purges for political advantage...I mean, one of the reasons he was less popular than his equally ghastly brothers was his perceived effeminacy (you know, poncy habits like bathing every month). And if the explanation for the name of Much the Miller's Son is amusing - there's so much of him, and they don't mean he's tall - I was less taken with Will Scarlet being turned into a dead name; wouldn't Marian have been a more obvious candidate for the trans beauty disrupting a hitherto mas4masc band? Ultimately, these are but individual symptoms of a certain underlying clunkiness, and one not helped by art which is at best workaday, and not always anatomically consistent. The climax does have some feats of archery, which are impressive going on ludicrous, but that's overshadowed by a reprise of the Stonewall debate (revolutionary trans woman v assimilationist gay men), which often tends to come across as hamfisted even in art based on the actual incident, where it wasn't hopelessly anachronistic.

(Netgalley ARC)

A fast fun read with a new version of the same Robin Hood story we've heard a million times. I enjoyed the new takes on these characters!

I was EXTREMELY excited to review this wonderful-looking LGBTQ+ Robin Hood retelling, but the file archived on November 2nd, despite the fact that on November 1st, I looked at my shelf and the title said it would be archiving in DECEMBER, not November. I'm really sad that I won't get the chance to review this now, but to be frank, I'm not submitting it as a "did not read" review because it's not quite fair to take a hit to my percentage because the archival date was changed at the last minute. Giving the title 5 stars for benefit of the doubt as it's not the author's fault the date was changed abruptly.

This is a really good re-imagining of the story of Robin hood and his band of merry men. The story tells the legend of Robin hood and how he became an outlaw living in Sherwood Forest with the Sheriff of Nottingham seeking to hunt him down and kill him.

In this story the main characters are lgbtq and the story tells how they became outcast and how their sexuality was used to marginalise them and set them up as scapegoats. Robin and his men excape the sheriff's clutches in order to form their own community but danger and conspiracy also lurk in the forest waiting to hunt them down.

I really enjoyed the artwork. The drawings are bright and colourful and the re-telling is imaginative. It would be very enjoyable to have this as a paperback. The only aspect of the book that I am not too keen on is its wordiness. It is very wordy for a graphic novel but given the fact that it is re-telling a story all the prose might be necessary.

In any case this is a lovely graphic novel with good characters, great artwork and some imaginative adventures.

Copy provided via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

This was so much fun, and a delightful retelling of Robin Hood! Filled with LGBTQ+ representation, this found its way onto my to-read shelf very fast, and whilst it wasn't perfect, I very much enjoyed it.

** I WAS GIVEN THIS BOOK FOR MY READING PLEASURE **
Copy received through Netgalley

~

Merry Men, by Robert Rodi
★★★★☆
152 Pages

Would I read it again?: Yes
Genre: Comic, Graphic Novel, Historical, LGBT


I have to admit, when I first saw the concept for this comic/graphic novel, I was intrigued. I've always thought that Robin Hood and His Merry Men had an MM/LGBT context that no one had uncovered before. And as a conspiracy/history buff, I could smell the hidden story, but didn't have the qualifications to go digging for the proof or historical facts.
Merry Men is beautifully illustrated, and amazingly accurate for the time period. The presentation and the realism of the plot is incredible. I love that there are a full spectrum of characters present – trans, queer, gay, lesbian. There was a bit of a “free love” aspect that was disappointing. I would have liked to have seen at least one solid relationship, where eyes didn't wander and they didn't turn to someone else without thought of the other person. Monogamy this was not.
And while I loved the adventure, the storyline, how it was shown, and all the individual characters, I did feel disappointed to get to the last page and find that it just...stopped. That was it. It introduced “Friar Tuck” as a villain, and the entire story came to an end. There was no mention of this being Volume 1, Issue 1-4 or anything. I find that disappointing. If it had been clearly marked, it could have been a 5 star, because I would have expected the abrupt ending, with the cliffhanger of living to fight another day, but I didn't. So I marked it down to a 4 star. I did appreciate the historical LGBT characters section at the back, though.
I would read more, but even searching for the book online didn't provide any information as to whether there would be further volumes, issues, or if this would be it. So, right now, I'm marking it on the information available which is that this is the end of the story. And I find that confusing and disappointing.

This is not the version of Robin Hood you are used to. And the author makes it very clear in the opening page, what to expect as you read along.

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This is the world of Robin Hood and that point in England, during and after the crusades, but with a gay twist. All the Merry Men are sleeping with each other.

And that is central to the plot, as Robin was once lovers with Richard the Lion Hearted.

And the author shows, at the end of the book, how homosexuality was known in those times, and men, at least, engaged in it.

However, be warned, the book is not a gay romp, but has twists and turns, and a lot of palace politics. It is a dense read, and not something to be read quickly, if you want to pick up on everything that is going on.

For me, a little too much hanky-panky, and a bit too much politics.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

Between the classic comic book stylings, the historical trappings, and the new take on the classic tale, I 100% enjoyed Merry Men, and I'm now left adrift at the cliffhanger ending. In looking around, I'm not seeing anything published after the end of this collection, and I need more!

There's a fair number of twists and turns over the chapters, and I found myself saying "oh, shit!" multiple times as something new was revealed. I highly recommend this one.

I loved this LGBTQ oriented, new approach to such a classic!! Merry Men is a highly enjoyable graphic novel, beautifully drawn and excitingly executed. What an adventure!! Highly recommended!!!

Robin Hood has always been one of my favorite stories. I'm always happy to see a new adaptation of it.

I was sooo excited for this but unfortunately the execution fell kind of flat. I love the idea of a queer Robin Hood and liked how they blended actual historical elements to the story, but this was an incredibly dense read and I struggled to get through it at times. It seemed to alternate wild between deep political intrigue and petty relationship jealously and honestly neither one of those is my favorite thing ever. I was obviously expecting it to be somewhat focused on politics, but every time one of the Merry Men got jealous because so and so was being nice to someone new and 'omg are you gonna leave me for them???!' like ...how old are you, 15? I liked the general premise and I loved what they did with Scarlet [well, in general, minus the drama] but I feel like the needed to either really cut down on the exposition or else just make it a prose novel. Still a good read but I was expecting a lot more.