The Four Color Media Monitor

The UK Guardian/Observer covered news of a graphic novel based on Apsley Cherry-Garrard's classic book chronicling the history of a doomed expedition in the Antarctic region over a century ago:

On 27 June 1911, three men set off on a polar trip that was to earn itself a remarkable reputation. Their midwinter Antarctic expedition became known, quite simply, as the worst journey in the world.

Henry “Birdie” Bowers, Apsley Cherry-Garrard and Bill Wilson – members of Robert Scott’s doomed Terra Nova expedition to the Antarctic – were aiming to collect emperor penguin eggs in the middle of winter. The trip was supposed to be a scientific prelude to Scott’s thrust to the south pole. It nearly killed its participants.

For more than a month they endured blizzards and temperatures that plunged to -60C and below in the pitch black. They navigated by candlelight and stars and frequently fell into crevasses. Cherry-Garrard’s teeth chattered so violently they shattered. “Sometimes it was difficult not to howl,” he recalled.

After 35 days, the trio returned to their base camp, close to death. Cherry-Garrard never fully recovered from the ordeal, describing his experiences in his book, The Worst Journey in the World, which was published 100 years ago.

It remains one of the most enthralling and disturbing accounts of an expedition of any sort and its centenary is being celebrated by its being adapted into a series of graphic novels, illustrated by former Disney animator Sarah Airriess, which is being published in collaboration with the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge. “My ambition is to bring you an epic story from the pages of history in a fun and engaging way,” she says in her introduction.

So long as it's not political, or altered in a way meant to inject leftist ideology, it should be fine. It's certainly important history on how traveling in these icy regions can be a horrible experience, or certainly was over a century ago when resources weren't what they could be today.

Labels: Europe and Asia, history