Jun 14Review: King City
by Brandon Graham
Reviewed by Joshua Drummond
King City is a simple story. It is about a man and his cat. Except the man is Joe, a skilled thief, and his cat is Earthling J. J. Catsingworth the Third, who can turn into anything – a flame-thrower, a periscope, a pun – given the appropriate injection. Joe and Earthling have arrived back in King City, a place of secrets, warring gangs and throbbing demon hearts, where they must face a terrible threat to the entire world and Joe’s issues with his ex-girlfriend Anna.
So yeah. It sounds a bit loopy. That’s because it’s a bit loopy. `In an excellent way. Brandon Graham is a comic book wizard, adding ingredients from all of pop culture to a bubbling cauldron of pure invention. He’s also a connoisseur of wordplay: King City has as many puns as six or seven Asterix books.
The art is perfectly paired with the writing, and has the fast and loose feel of you’d expect from someone with a graffiti background like Graham. Every panel tells a story. No space is wasted. Every building has something clever and/or a dick drawn on it. Please note: this isn’t a kids comic. Sex, violence, drugs – a particularly interesting drug called “chalk” that slowly turns the user into the substance itself is a stand-out and thought-provoking invention - King City has it all. The thing with the sex, violence and drugs is that it fits quite perfectly into the world being portrayed. None of it is superfluous or gratuitous, only awesome, like when Earthling cuts everything in half for several city blocks or flambes a Demon King.
In addition to the wild, extravagant invention, King City is a subtle story of love and loss, about coming home to find things different. It’s about how people change – and how they don’t. It’s also completely and utterly mental. This comic could never be made into a movie. Perfectly collected into a giant-size single book, King City is a living example of the kind of storytelling that is only possible in comics.
Available here: http://www.mk1.co.nz/store/latest-arivals/king-city.html
Tags: Review
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