A far different Beowulf appears briefly in 1997 in Bill Willingham’s Fantagraphics series Coventry. Willingham has worked extensively in the fantasy and sword and sorcery genres, doing illustrations for the gaming company TSR early in his career and creating his Fables series that features a number of characters from folk and fairy tales around the world. While Coventry was never completed and only ran for three issues, a Grendel-esque cannibalistic imp is introduced as a recurring villain in the first issue, with Beowulf being introduced briefly at the end of issue two and reappearing in issue three. In this incarnation, Beowulf is depicted as being medium height and overweight, a monster hunter who for some reason has lost his license to practice but who is being hired by a supernatural investigator. There is no way to know how his character may have developed in the series, so there is no information as to how he can still exist, but in his 2002 Beowulf novel, The Monster Maker, Willingham describes that as he was covered with the dragon’s blood prior to being bitten, Beowulf’s body was able to regenerate itself after death. The story continues in Willingham's Hyde and Seek. Overall, it likely would have been an interesting take on the character as it would have shown him as powerful but flawed, and a bit more human than the original character.