How does one tell the biggest story ever for a modern audience? You just tell it.
Adaptations, especially of classical material, can lead to some interesting and entertaining works. But one that tends to sit on a mountain for its notoriously complex themes and difficulty is the Epic of Gilgamesh. Creator Cam Kerkau took it upon himself to approach it not with trepidation but with the understanding that themes can be cyclical, coming back into relevancy sometimes thousands of years later.
SQ: Can you tell us a little about yourself?
CK: My name is Cam Kirkau. I’m a writer and editor here in Detroit. I’ve been doing this for about 10 years.
SQ: What are some of your influences?
CK: I’m happily influenced by Naoki Urasawa, probably my favorite of all time. Pluto was big for me, Monster was big for me. I’ve been looking at a lot of Hugo Pratt recently, Corto Maltese. I’ve obviously read hundreds of Marvel and DC books. And right now I’m reading a little bit of Charles Burns, Black Hole, where they just announced they’re working on a Netflix thing, so I’m looking forward to that a lot.
Yeah, I try to look at everything.
SQ: And tell me a little about what you’re what you’re working on right now.
CK: Yeah, so right now I’m here selling Gilgamesh Eternal. This is an adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. It’s a Sumerian myth. He’s a demigod; he is one part man, two parts God, or two parts man, one part God, I can never remember. He thinks he’s the most powerful man in the world. He’s king of a place called Uruk and he’s cruel to his people, because he thinks that nobody can touch him because he’s the strongest man in the world. His subjects pray to the gods to send somebody to humble him, and so the God make his equal and exact opposite, man, Enkidu. They send him to do battle with Gilgamesh and it works. They clash, it’s a draw. Gilgamesh is humbled and he actually falls in love with Enkidu. Together the two go on a bunch of adventures together, across the land, eventually pissing off the gods who kill Enkidu to punish Gilgamesh. That sends Gilgamesh into a kind of existential crisis because he’s grieving his loved one. So he goes on a quest for immortality ’cause it’s a big surprise to him that he’s gonna die (he thought he was immortal). And, yeah, it does not go well for him. It gets really bloody — and it’s a lot of fun for the reader.
Kerkau’s Epic of Gilgamesh adaptation
SQ: What’s it like adapting such a huge, well-known myth? There’s a lot of mythology and a lot of depth to it, so how do you do that for modern audiences?
CK: It’s interesting. I think one of the things that surprised me about the myth, reading it, was how well I thought it would work in a modern context. It’s a very exciting story, even though it’s 3,000 years old. There’s sex and blood and violence, and these big, human questions that we’re still asking ourselves today. So adapting it was easier than you’d expect.
SQ: What do you mean by big human questions?
CK: I think the parts of the myth that were most important were about the human experience, about life, how we treat others, and how that affects us. Gilgamesh is always trying to find out who he is, he’s always questioning himself and his existence. It’s very basic, because we still have those same questions today. You know, what’s our purpose? What should we mean to other people? How do we connect with others and how does that affect us. It’s what it means to be human, and I don’t think that’s ever going to get away from us.
SQ: And it’s out now?
CK: Yeah, it’s out now. I don’t have it up online yet because I’m selling the physical copies, but, because I self published and completely funded through Kickstarter, the trade is gonna be available on the next couple of Kickstarters I do with some new series that I’ve got planned right now.
You can find more of Cam Kerkau at the Solid Absurdity Substack, Bluesky, and Instagram.
Photos by Dali Dimovski (SideQuesting)
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