Amazon Prime Video has announced it has greenlit production of its next animated series, Lore Olympus. This time, it’s not based on a Critical Role campaign or a Robert Kirkman comic book. Lore Olympus started as a webcomic — not the first webcomic to get a streaming deal (a Strange Planet adaption came and went) but perhaps the most high-profile one to date. The cartoon for this comic has actually been in the pre-planning stages since 2019.
Created by Rachel Smythe, Lore Olympus is a retelling of the Greek myth The Taking Of Persephone, though it takes great liberties with that storyline. Its main focus is the romance between Persephone and Hades, with the affairs of the other Greek gods happening in the background. I guess Krapopolis now has competition in the animated ancient myth field.
Julia Cooperman, whose credits include AMC and Netflix’s Pantheon, as well as the short-lived live-action shows The Winchesters and Willow, will be the showrunner for Lore Olympus. Cooperman will executive produce the series with Madden and Sydney Bright of Webtoon Productions, Aron Levitz, and Henson and Halle Stanford for The Jim Henson Company (Yup, The Jim Henson Company is involved). JHC’s Delaney Shiokari is the executive in charge of production.
“I am beyond thrilled to partner with Prime Video, The Jim Henson Company, and Webtoon on the series adaptation of Rachel Smythe’s wildly popular web comic, Lore Olympus,” said Cooperman. “My fascination with Greek mythology has spanned grade-school libraries and college seminars. Reading Lore Olympus, I was reminded of the enduring power of these tales, which echo through so much of our modern-day storytelling. We can’t wait to share this frisky, soulful, and timely reimagining of Persephone and Hades’ story with new audiences and longtime readers alike.”
Let this reporter just admit that I’ve never heard of Lore Olympus before in my life. Even though it’s been around for nearly ten years and won several awards including two Eisners, it’s all happened out of my circle. On quick glance, the art is very charming with a style reminiscent of 1960s picture books. I just wish it…sigh…wasn’t on Webtoon.
There’s this annoying thing that I personally hate where a reporter will take a news item and turn it into their own personal rant about something, which no one asked for. So…seeing as I’m about to become a hypocrite, I will try to keep this brief. This isn’t a political thing; if Webtoon execs are eating babies or anything else horrific I am blissfully unaware. I’m just opposed to the general IDEA of it…the threat of all webcomics being forced to originate in one place just to find an audience.
When you give one business that kind of absolute dominion over a part of your life, they then have the opening to abuse that power, which has happened nearly EVERY SINGLE OTHER TIME, from Amazon to Google to Adobe to Spotify to anything else. There is a popular vulgar term now for this kind of thing, which I won’t repeat here. I don’t want it to happen to webcomics.
Don’t get your webcomics from Webtoon. Get them from websites. Don’t let an algorithm of a monolith tell you what to read. Sites where the author decides what the content will be and how the layout will look are far superior, both for the author and the reader.
“But how can I find them if Google is broken?” you ask. Well, there are other sites that can help better. For starters look for a site called The Webcomic Travelogue, where they make recommendations but stop short of dictating what gets the most exposure. There’s a long row of webcomic sites listed in the order in which they were updated. Check them out, see what you think of each one and bookmark your favorites.
You’ll be happier, the webcomic community will be happier, and the Sidney Whiplashes of the corporate world will be foiled once again.
Anyway, watch for Lore Olympus on Amazon Prime soon. Also, I’ve planted a spyware cookie on your browser that is impossible to remove and if it ever tells me you visited Webtoon after I told you not to, I will come to your house with a bazooka. I’m serious, people!
