Goliath (Drawn & Quarterly)

Creator: Tom Gauld

A Page 45 Comic Book of the Month

This is the first long form work that I have read by Tom Gauld, having been entertained by his cartoons in The Guardian for a while now. His style is such that it was difficult to see whether it would sustain a longer narrative. It is with some pleasure that not only does it sustain such a work, but it helps to enhance its meaning.

The style itself is one of seemingly simple, cartoonish figures (closer to the Schulz end of the spectrum than Eddie Campbell), and panels drawn with a confidence that allows for quite extensive use of negative space. Gauld's panel layouts are never cluttered, his page design quite elegant, and the use of splash pages effective. His panel borders are hand drawn, and the shaky line lends an extra human quality to the look.

All of this contributes to the matter-of-fact attitude that is used to communicate the story. There's no over the top melodrama that you would imagine Marvel possibly using to put over the tale of David and Goliath, no over emoting. Rather the artist takes this gentle, peace loving character and shows the events that lead to his tragic demise, in much the same way that the source material puts across the story with little emotion, but to much different effect.

As for the story, we all know the tale of David and Goliath. What Tom Gauld does here is show Goliath of Gath not as a violent, fearsome hero of the Philistines, but as a more peaceable fellow caught up in the machinations of his senior officer and the apathy of his King:


"...I believe I can end this stalemate and win the war in two weeks at a maximum cost of two Philistine lives."

To be fair to the Captain, he does seem to be concerned with ending the war with the least amount of casualties to his side, but this requires a sacrifice, and he certainly isn't going to use a skilled warrior. Thus Goliath is chosen, especially as his height makes him seem tougher and more convincing as a champion of the Philistines, which comes as some surprise to the man himself. The first time he sees the speech he has to shout challenging the enemy send one man to try to kill him, he faints. When he comes round he is a little confused:

"There's been a mistake...I'm not the champion. I'm the fifth-worst swordsman in my platoon...""

Assured by his Captain that there is no risk and he is merely doing his bit for the cause, Goliath continues to shout this message day after day until one day, as we all know, he is killed by a stone launched from the sling of David. This scene is shown with exactly the same lack of melodrama as the rest of the story, even down to the decapitation, and the simplicity and rapidity with which the death of this character we truly feel for happens is heartbreaking.

"Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith."
- King James Bible

This death scene is much more affecting in Tom Gauld's comic than the above description. What the artist appears to have done is to have given us a deconstructionist text, forcing the reader to look at the David and Goliath story from a different angle, forcing us to question our inbuilt assumptions about firstly this story, and secondly about the use of violence as a means to an end, and the presentation of this violence, which occurs often in the Old Testament, within a body of work that influences politics and society today (as an example you only have to look at the homophobic reaction of some members of the Christian community who will hold up selective quotes from the Old Testament as some sort of justification).

The decapitation of Goliath, for whom we feel a great deal of sympathy in this comic, raises memories of the horrific decapitations that have been broadcast over the internet by certain religious extremists, and this should make us question our assumptions that the Old Testament should be held up as a moral guide, rather than the gentler New Testament, which is rather less quoted by the intolerant given its propensity for tolerance and forgiveness.

Ultimately what Gauld forces us to confront is the human cost of war and violence. As with the novel, All Quiet on the Western front, so with Goliath - if we humanise the enemy we find that he is more like us than we would have believed, and our desire for violent confrontation is greatly diminished. This is a crucial message given the bloodshed of the last decade.