Trivia / Democracy

The Comic Book:

• Creator Couple: Alecos Papadatos (co-writer and illustrator) and Annie Do Donna (colourist) are married in Real Life.
• Creator's Favourite: Abraham Kawa admitted in an interview that his favourite character was Cleisthenes, for having a morally gray personality.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Alecos Papadatos admitted that they did something like a character casting for their heroes:
  • Leander was inspired by French actor Romain Duris.
  • Cleisthenes by Michael Caine.
  • Isagoras, meanwhile, was based on Mack Swain.
• What Could Have Been: Quite a few changes were made before the final product:
  • Leander didn't have major changes, but his original facial characteristics resembled that of Echekrates.
  • Cleisthenes was drawn with red hair, instead of grey.
  • The tyrant Hippias seemed to have a bigger role in the story, but ended up appearing a handful of times in the first chapter, disappearing completely for Chapter 2 and onwards and only mentioned once.
  • Athena also had red hair, but ended up appearing all gold.
• Word of God: The Commentary Section at the end of the book provides some of the authors' thoughts and ideas:
  • The unnamed general that accompanies King Kleomenes to Athens is his step-brother, Leonidas (yes, that same Leonidas who fought at Thermopylae).
  • Speaking of which, the unnamed poet who listened to Leander's story is Aeschylus.
  • Sparta's presence in the story was to be a Foil to Athens'. Sparta was run from fear and it was incredibly militaristic and oligarchic, while Athens is far more democratic (not to the same extend as today, though) and had to find the courage to rise from the obstacles.
  • Similarly, Hero and Leander's myth represents the fear of the two lovers. Just like the Athenians had to believe in Cleisthenes' vision, Hero and Leander had to believe in their love, in order not to end up like the two persons of the myth.