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Dawn: The Return of the Goddess #1-4
Dawn: The Return of the Goddess
With only two witches left, one of them takes her own life rather than fall prey to her enemies. With her dying breath, she summons Dawn, the Goddess of the earth, of birth and rebirth, and protector of the witches. Lucifer, prince of lies, and Ahura-Mazda, master of Heaven, may try to bar her path with treachery and swords, but neither Heaven nor Hell is safe from Dawn's quest for answers - and for bloody vengeance.
144 pages, Paperback
First published June 4, 2002
About the author
Joseph Michael Linsner
210 books29 followersJoseph Michael Linsner is most well-known for DAWN, his personal Pin-Up Goddess. After her debut appearance on the cover of CRY FOR DAWN #1 in 1989, Dawn struck a chord with thousands of fans on an international level. She is currently published in six languages and has come to life in the form of statues, action figures, t-shirts, lithographs, lunch boxes and trading cards..An award winning Illustrator, Linsner has painted covers for all of the major comics characters, including Wolverine, Justice League, Conan, and Vampirella. One of his proudest moments was getting to illustrate a short story written by Stan Lee for 'Actor Comics Presents'. Next up for Linsner is 'The White Phoenix & Other Stories' a collection of Dawn short tales, before he starts work on the fourth Dawn graphic novel due in 2013. To contact JML for booking and appearances and conventions or shows please note the authorized email address and ONLY official JML AUTHORIZED 2011-2012 BIOGRAPHY has been updated from the old sites. Current info is on his Blogger, facebook and twitter accounts.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 4, 2009
As I said before I found this tpb along with its predecessor at a used book shop. In great condition though it is a 4th printing as well.
This is set in a more modern time then the previous volume, though Dawn would be timeless. It starts out with two witches in the woods performing a ceremony of some sort, when they are victimized by some zealots. More of them is discovered later. The girls run of complaining about people not understanding the true meaning of wicca, and being wiccan. Then they talk of what it means to themselves.
Without giving to much away one of them does a ritual to call forth the Goddess Dawn patron saint of the witches. Unlike the first volume "Lucifer's Halo" this volume has Dawn in a much more active role. She heads out to avenge her witches.
I personally love the much more intimate relationship Micheal Linsner uses in his portrayal of Jehovah and Lucifer. We saw some of it in the first volume, true. In Return of the Goddess this is more of a driving theme to the plot.
Once again I am very happy with the Dawn novella and will recommend anyone that can get their hands on a copy read it. At the very least check it out for his amazing art forms.
This is set in a more modern time then the previous volume, though Dawn would be timeless. It starts out with two witches in the woods performing a ceremony of some sort, when they are victimized by some zealots. More of them is discovered later. The girls run of complaining about people not understanding the true meaning of wicca, and being wiccan. Then they talk of what it means to themselves.
Without giving to much away one of them does a ritual to call forth the Goddess Dawn patron saint of the witches. Unlike the first volume "Lucifer's Halo" this volume has Dawn in a much more active role. She heads out to avenge her witches.
I personally love the much more intimate relationship Micheal Linsner uses in his portrayal of Jehovah and Lucifer. We saw some of it in the first volume, true. In Return of the Goddess this is more of a driving theme to the plot.
Once again I am very happy with the Dawn novella and will recommend anyone that can get their hands on a copy read it. At the very least check it out for his amazing art forms.
September 14, 2019
Self-indulgent twaddle masquerading as philosophy in the guise of a goddess pretending to be profound but really just an untouchable pin-up figure designed to tease the male gaze.
May 3, 2023
Lisner is an incredible artist, but he has no business writing stories. this was just a mess. Beautiful, but a mess.
September 5, 2016
First, I will start by saying that I am going to post this same review for two of the Dawn collections, because I think my thoughts on the pieces as a whole are interconnected.
As a comic fan in the 90s, I, like a lot of readers, noticed the “bad girl” comics explosion, in which busy girls were used to sell comics. What a lot of readers don’t know is that many of those comics had legitimately strong stories, and the art was simply a way to entice readers to check out the work. Lady Death is one particular comic that comes to mind (RIP Steven Hughes). During the 90s, there was an influx of great stories from DC Vertigo, with Hellblazer, Sandman, and a lot of other great titles. Dawn, by Joseph Michael Linsner, seems to contain the bad girl aesthetic with Gaiman-esque storytelling.
I completely missed out on Dawn. I don’t know how popular it was, but I think it probably got lost in the shuffle for me. Now that I have discovered it, I really, really wish there was more of it.
As a poet and a publisher, I see that you can literally take a page out of each graphic novel and craft it into a poem. The myth concepts involved in the stories gave me a Sandman-vibe that I hadn’t felt from a graphic novel in years. Every page in the Dawn mythos screamed METAPHOR to me, as each panel was very deliberate, each word carefully chosen.
When Three Tiers first arrived at my home, I flipped through it for pictures of Dawn. I had faith in Linsner, and knew the story had to be purposeful (there weren’t many pictures of Dawn). It’s not like Dawn is established as a likeable protagonist, but is more of a presence in the same vein that Morpheus in the Sandman comics did not even appear in some of the stories. As I reflect on this, I wonder if Linsner found some success in the comics industry, because it does seem like the character has a very cult-ish feel with a devoted, but small, following. If this is true, it’s unfortunate, and I blame the way the industry was during the 90s, because this is art that could have been regarded as a classic.
I would beg Linsner to do more Dawn work, if I could. Reading these books makes me wish I could return to an era in which social justice warriors didn’t ruin the ability to tell a good story; I will not spoil some of the panels, but I know there has been a lot of outcry over the years about particular characters and their sexual orientation, their race, etc. A part of me feels that comics like Dawn and Sandman wouldn’t even be printed today, which is a shame.
While I am not a female, and this will sound strange coming from me because it would be as if I am not credible, but there are strong feminist overtones in these stories, especially when you consider that Linsner seemed to illustrate women who were very realistic, as far as their body types. I know how that sounds, if you’re just looking at the covers of these books, but I will say that Linsner’s passion for his dreams is very much alive on the page. We sometimes forget that these stories are fantasy stories, and while the bad girl comics were seemingly marketed as boy fantasies, I think the Dawn books would resonate strongly with an audience that is completely the opposite of that, as far as reader expectations. Maybe that’s why Dawn does not seem as prominent in my own recollection; I know I probably would not have appreciated the aesthetic as much when I was reading Lady Death and Vampirella in the 90s (although Shi by Billy Tucci was amazing and also poetic). I can only imagine a reader who picked up a Dawn comic because of the cover and didn’t see what they wanted. I feel that when the bad girl craze was going on, readers flocked to some of these titles and found actual stories, and those were the titles that suffered most, in the long run (Lady Death actually had a very good mythos, too).
So this wasn’t so much of a review as an overall tribute to art that I missed out on. If you are reading this, Mr. Linsner, PLEASE GIVE US MORE. We need work like this.
As a comic fan in the 90s, I, like a lot of readers, noticed the “bad girl” comics explosion, in which busy girls were used to sell comics. What a lot of readers don’t know is that many of those comics had legitimately strong stories, and the art was simply a way to entice readers to check out the work. Lady Death is one particular comic that comes to mind (RIP Steven Hughes). During the 90s, there was an influx of great stories from DC Vertigo, with Hellblazer, Sandman, and a lot of other great titles. Dawn, by Joseph Michael Linsner, seems to contain the bad girl aesthetic with Gaiman-esque storytelling.
I completely missed out on Dawn. I don’t know how popular it was, but I think it probably got lost in the shuffle for me. Now that I have discovered it, I really, really wish there was more of it.
As a poet and a publisher, I see that you can literally take a page out of each graphic novel and craft it into a poem. The myth concepts involved in the stories gave me a Sandman-vibe that I hadn’t felt from a graphic novel in years. Every page in the Dawn mythos screamed METAPHOR to me, as each panel was very deliberate, each word carefully chosen.
When Three Tiers first arrived at my home, I flipped through it for pictures of Dawn. I had faith in Linsner, and knew the story had to be purposeful (there weren’t many pictures of Dawn). It’s not like Dawn is established as a likeable protagonist, but is more of a presence in the same vein that Morpheus in the Sandman comics did not even appear in some of the stories. As I reflect on this, I wonder if Linsner found some success in the comics industry, because it does seem like the character has a very cult-ish feel with a devoted, but small, following. If this is true, it’s unfortunate, and I blame the way the industry was during the 90s, because this is art that could have been regarded as a classic.
I would beg Linsner to do more Dawn work, if I could. Reading these books makes me wish I could return to an era in which social justice warriors didn’t ruin the ability to tell a good story; I will not spoil some of the panels, but I know there has been a lot of outcry over the years about particular characters and their sexual orientation, their race, etc. A part of me feels that comics like Dawn and Sandman wouldn’t even be printed today, which is a shame.
While I am not a female, and this will sound strange coming from me because it would be as if I am not credible, but there are strong feminist overtones in these stories, especially when you consider that Linsner seemed to illustrate women who were very realistic, as far as their body types. I know how that sounds, if you’re just looking at the covers of these books, but I will say that Linsner’s passion for his dreams is very much alive on the page. We sometimes forget that these stories are fantasy stories, and while the bad girl comics were seemingly marketed as boy fantasies, I think the Dawn books would resonate strongly with an audience that is completely the opposite of that, as far as reader expectations. Maybe that’s why Dawn does not seem as prominent in my own recollection; I know I probably would not have appreciated the aesthetic as much when I was reading Lady Death and Vampirella in the 90s (although Shi by Billy Tucci was amazing and also poetic). I can only imagine a reader who picked up a Dawn comic because of the cover and didn’t see what they wanted. I feel that when the bad girl craze was going on, readers flocked to some of these titles and found actual stories, and those were the titles that suffered most, in the long run (Lady Death actually had a very good mythos, too).
So this wasn’t so much of a review as an overall tribute to art that I missed out on. If you are reading this, Mr. Linsner, PLEASE GIVE US MORE. We need work like this.
January 17, 2010
Linsner returns to his Dawn character with a slightly more action/adventure plot, but it is still full of sort of Joseph Campbellish syncretizing of elements from multiple mythological systems. It can get a little hard to follow if you are not a mythology buff or into wiccan stuff, but it does not get in the way of enjoying the art.
August 23, 2011
Not nearly as good as the first story arc. The artwork is still good, but this story lacked the same wonderful post-apocalyptic human elements from Lucifer's Halo. In general, I was not as interested in the predominantly female cast of characters and the idea of witches in this book. It had conflict, but most of it felt like surface conflict aside from that of God and Lucifer.
July 3, 2021
This was a lucky find! I love when authors/graphic novelists explore the spiritual world. Mr. Lisner's interpretation of the Lucifer/Jehovah (Ahura Mazda) relationship blew me away. Then it made me laugh. I won't ruin the fun of discovering it for yourselves.
March 2, 2016
more confusion as I still have a hard time discerning what's going on, but it still looks pretty
January 10, 2011
Loved it enough to get her eye tattooed on my back.
Read
August 7, 2011not quite as good as the first book, but still good. the mythology and attempt at tackling modern religion is handled rather childishly, but good lord the artwork is fantastic.
August 8, 2014
I really enjoyed how this graphic novel
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews