Graphic Novel Review: King City

Every now and then, as a reader, I come across something that is so good it makes me reevaluate every last book/graphic novel/comic on my shelf.  Sometimes I read something extra special and ask myself why have I been wasting my time on inferior creations?  Call these books/comics bar-raisers,  call them game changers, or some other platitude, you know what I'm talking about.  It's those mind-blasting books/comics/whatever that keep me reading and keep me exploring.  I know these types of experiences are supposed to be few and far between, but damn, if I haven't been having them semi frequently lately.  Well, lo' and behold, here comes another one.

King City is quite probably the most wonderful and amazing comic I've ever had the pleasure of reading. I first discovered King City over a year ago when there were still a few copies of the single issues still kicking around at my preferred comic shop.  One look at the art told me I needed to read if just for that aspect alone, but then the shop owner told me that King City is about a regular dude named Joe who is a "catmaster" and can inject his cat with drugs to make it do special things like say, become a gun, or a parachute, or a periscope, or numerous other awesome things.  So, boom, awesome concept to go with awesome art.

Though I gave it a shot, tracking down the individual issues was a tall and expensive order, so I forced myself to be patient and await the eventual release of the graphic novel.  Well, a long year of waiting later and here I am, and I can proudly say that this has been more than worth the wait.

As I already mentioned, King City more than delivers the goods on the art front.  Writer/Artist Brandon Graham is hands down one of the most talented dudes in the industry and has landed with ease and grace onto my "Buy Whatever This Dude Is Making" list.  His pages and panels can be loaded with exquisite detail  hidden gems, great art, and other times they can be sparse with lots of white space that somehow makes everything seem more vast and epic.  No matter what is on the page, it is a visual treat.  Graham isn't afraid to move away from the norms of what you might find on a comic page either.  There's plenty of visual jokes, and mini-games that are a lot of fun and are cool extras that makes this comic extra special.  How often do artists turn a page into a crossword puzzle, or a game of connect the dots or a game board?  Pretty much never, but Graham does all three, and each time they make the reading experience more fun, or provide a cool way of telling the story.  

Though King City is about Joe and his cat, Earthling J.J. Catingsworth the Third, it is kinda sorta a comic about well...nothing.  Sure there's a tentacle-blob thing that threatens the entire world, a dangerous femme-fatale whom Joe lusts after, and his ex-lady who he still has some feelings for, but Joe, by way of Graham's writing, is content to take his time getting around to that big scary plot-monster. Instead Graham gives the readers a sort of anti-plot comic that is anything but the "main plot" and instead an exploration of the characters, their lives, the world, and how all those elements interact and have a past present and future.  That might sound weird, but it is actually quite brilliant and incredibly entertaining.  If you've read the blog, you know I'm a stickler for plot, but I actually loved Graham's plot-be-damned approach.  

On top of being a guy that can deliver amazing art, and a captivating story, Graham proves in King City that he is also a world class pun-master. Graham unloads the puns at a rate that probably averages out at over one pun per page. A bunch of puns might seem like a little thing, maybe even a silly thing to some, but they add a great layer to the story, and gave me something to search for in every world bubble, and piece of text on every page.   It's not very often that any creative piece is interactive, engaging, thought provoking, and entertaining but King City is all of the above.

Even though King City is incredibly awesome as is, there's another great quality that bears mentioning. Just in case you need more encouragement to buy/read King City, this graphic novel tips the scales at an astounding 424 pages all for the insanely cheap price of $20.  This is quite possibly the best deal ever on a comic. 

I think King City is special for a lot of good reasons, but it gets raised to that extra special level because Graham is so willing to stretch and redefine what comics are capable of doing.  The comics medium can be a bit of a stale place sometimes, but in King City, Graham showed me that comics can and should be so much more than what I've been accepting as the norm. What's great is that Graham isn't trying to shove any ideals or views down my throat, there's no agenda; making comics that expand the medium into new territory, well, that's just how he rolls, and I for one, am so happy that he does.  

Grade: A+

Comic Quickies: Young Guns

Rocketeer Adventures 2 #1: Yes! (Fist Pump!) I didn't know this even existed until I strolled into the comic shop one Wednesday and it was in my pull box...it's good to have a shop owner who looks out for you!

So, in case you didn't know, Rocketeer Adventures is back for round two.  And look at that fucking sweet Darwyn Cooke cover!  I would buy that poster.

Anyway, like the first go-'round this new version follows the same template: short 8-10 page comics from an all-star cast of comics creators, and pin-ups from some of the finest artists in the land.  This issue is no exception, as comics legend, Stan Sakai delivers what was my favorite story of the issue.  This was one of my favorite titles from last year, so I'm very excited to be getting more.  If you haven't already done so, check this one out.

Rebel Blood #1: When I heard Riley Rossmo was working on his very own project to follow up his fantastic work on Green Wake, I got really excited. Then, when I saw some art previews, I nearly wet my pants.  Even if the story was about a zombie outbreak, I knew I wouldn't be able to resist.

I guess you could say that Rebel Blood is a zombie story with a twist.  The twist being that even animals can get infected, thus the infection rate is insanely fast.  The story follows Chuck who's a firefighter stationed at one of those remote forest watchtowers when he gets the news of the outbreak.  With his family at home in a distant town Chuck hustles to see if he can save them.  Along the way there's some sweet zombie killin' action.

What I think I liked most about this first issue is that we get a good sense of who Chuck is.  Spoiler Alert: He's kinda a dick.  Which makes him an interesting "hero".  What was extra special is that as Chuck is racing to the rescue, we get into his head a bit as there's a series of green colored panels which depict Chuck's imagination of how his rescue mission might turn out. Through these I got a good sense of the character, and I thought it was a unique and interesting way to handle character development.  I'm definitely excited for more.

Prophet #23: The first arc in the new generation of this amazing title comes to an amazing, and plot-twisty end in this issue.  I gotta say, this had a really awesome ending and it set up infinite possibilities for a future of awesomeness for the title.  In just three issues, Prophet has skyrocketed to the top tier of comics on my pull list.  Each issue has been a wonderland of creative, nutty, fantastic ideas all working together to create a unique science-fantasy action comic.  The writing by Brandon Graham has been sweet, and the art by Simon Roy has been perfect.

I think this is Roy's last issue at the art helm for now, but I'll definitely be looking out for his future projects as I think he's a rare talent in the business.  (In just a paragraph or so I'll be checking out some of his past work too!) My fingers are crossed that he blows up (in the good way) and always has a project that he's working on.  I can't say this enough: you gotta check out Prophet.  Issues 21, 22, and 23 specifically, as they are a shining example of how great comics can be.

Jan's Atomic Heart: One of the goodies I picked up while I was at Emerald City Comicon was Simon Roy's first published work, Jan's Atomic Heart.  I consider this a very fine piece of treasure, as it was one of those things that I just sort of stumbled across, but knew I had to have it as soon as I laid eyes on it.

In this 52 page one-shot (which is printed like a digest-size graphic novel) set in near-future Frankfurt, Jan is the recent victim of a car-accident.  While his body is healing in the hospital, his consciousness has been transferred to and old lunar-made robot body.  Jan soon discovers that similar robot bodies are being used as bombs in terrorist attacks.  Fearing he may be the next to explode, Jan turns to his only friend, Anders for help, but what they discover is more shocking that Jan could have ever expected.

Considering that Jan's Atomic Heart is Roy's first published work, I was surprised at how ridiculously good this comic is.  It is written with all the skill and confidence of a veteran all-star writer and illustrated beautifully.  Simply said, this is a nearly flawless comic.  There's a subtle emotion to the comic that gives the story another layer on top of the great art, and engaging characters.  This is seriously awesome and I strongly urge anyone who reads this to check it out.

Jan's Atomic Heart might be tough to get a hold of through traditional channels, but Roy provides a nice link from his blog to a spot which sells it...you can also see a 22 page preview, so all the more better.  Enjoy!

More on The Dragon's Path

I've had a pretty interesting discussion about The Dragon's Path with Neth and few others over at SFF World today.

One of the things I really struggled with internally, (but didn't mention in my review because I don't want an author's personal views or my perception of their views to cloud my review of their work) were the liberal vs. conservative and class politics elements that Abraham weaves into his narrative.  These elements are seen most often in the Kalliam POV chapters. As I mentioned in my review, Kalliam was a character I disliked.  I stated that I felt like Abraham used him to drive along plot elements in the political arena, even though sometimes the decisions he made didn't seem to fit with his character.  However, in my review, I didn't mention that Kalliam was a character that REALLY got under my skin because he represented a lot of things I personally detest, (classism, racism, sexism, and more...) and I couldn't decide whether Kalliam was a subtle work of genius on behalf of Abraham, or an outlet for Abraham's political views.  Neth, who has met Abraham and discussed the book with the author, stated that this not a case of the latter, but almost certainly a deliberate challenging of the reader's perceptions and expectations.

After talking about it with folks at SFF World and reflecting on my review, I feel that I did my readers a disservice by not mentioning this opposition of my-personal-views-versus-plot-elements aspect of my experience in reading The Dragon's Path.  The fact that a character whose views so diametrically oppose my own could cause such an intense internal struggle in me is something that deserves mention and should at the very least speak to Abraham's skill in creating character that can get a powerful reaction out of the reader.

I try really hard to give you readers my honest opinion and give authors a fair review with reasoning to back up my thoughts both positive and negative.  I think I did that here with The Dragon's Path too, as I still stand by everything I stated in my review.  That being said, in an effort to be the most honest and thorough reviewer I can be, I want to add that my review of The Dragon's Path should have mentioned that my personal political/social views were strongly opposed to some of the plot elements in The Dragon's Path. There were parts of the story that were definitely challenging for me on a personal level.   As I mentioned above in this post, thanks to further reflection and discussion of the novel, I'm of the opinion that Abraham is a slick magician when it comes to creating characters that not only challenge the norms of the fantasy genre, but he also challenged me on a personal level.  This is a credit to both the writer and the novel.

Now this doesn't do anything to change my "grade" of the novel, as the lack of world building, lack of cultural diversity, hit and miss character development that though it had an additional layer than what I initially mentioned in my review, still left me wanting more. Combine all that with what I saw as a weak political aspect and my "grade", for what its worth, the arbitrary fucker, still stands. Though I dare say that between the review and this post, you have a pretty clear view of my thoughts on The Dragon's Path.

Book Review: The Dragon's Path

The Dragon's Path was a highly anticipated read for me.  Despite hearing lots of good things about Abraham from all corners of the interwebs,  I had yet to get around to reading anything by the guy.  On top of hearing great things about Abraham from bloggers and reviewers whose opinions I trust, from what I hear, the guy is like, George R.R. Martin's padawan or something. Well, that's gotta be worth somethin' right?  Also, I feel like I've been searching and failing to find the next great epic fantasy series and then, boom, along comes a new fantasy series by this Abraham guy I keep hearing about.  So, it is fair to say that I had some hopes, high hopes, pinned on this opening volume of The Dagger and The Coin series.

This new epic fantasy starts out on familiar turf, with an orphan.  But Cithrin isn't your typical fantasy orphan.  From the get-go Cithrin is intelligent, capable, and thankfully, not part of some ancient prophecy. Instead, she's the ward of a rich banking house which lies in a city about to fall under siege.  Cithrin is tasked with the extremely difficult and stress-inducing task of smuggling the bank's wealth across a war zone as part of a trading caravan guarded by one of our other principle characters, Marcus Wester.  Wester is in charge of a band of mercenaries theater troupe which he has hired to play-act at being hardened soldiers since his own crew got arrested for drunken and disorderly conduct.

As Marcus, Cithrin and the theater troupe flee the free cites, Geder, a young noble from the neighboring Antean Empire heads towards the same city as part of an invading army.  More of a scholar than a soldier, Geder is a pawn in the great games that the nobles back in Antea play...a game that is spiraling out of control in the worst possible way.

The Dragon's Path is a problematic book for me. I wanted this one to be good. It could have been good. But it wasn't that good.  This book is basically a great poker hand where the author didn't go all in and he should have.  Abraham has all the makings here of a solid, potentially great new edition to the epic fantasy pantheon but he doesn't quite deliver the goods.  For every potentially positive aspect of this novel, there is an equally negative quality that drags that aspect down towards mediocrity.

Allow me to elucidate:

Abraham does something I always love to see in epic fantasy, and populates his world with a bevy of humanity who are of different races.  (And I don't mean elves, dwarves, gnomes, goblins, etc.) This is a quality of the book that I was very excited about, and I was always hoping to hear more about as I turned the pages.  Sadly, the differing races are only given a bit of mention and even less description.  From what I did read, there didn't seem to be much cultural or language diversity among the peoples that populate the world.  Maybe there'll be more exploration of  the various races in the coming volumes, but for my money there should have been more development of this concept in the 550 pages this volume contains.

Another aspect that felt half baked and ties in a bit with racial diversity is the world building. I'm always excited to explore a new fantasy world and see what awesomeness it holds in store for me. It's a fun aspect of the genre for me.  The Dragon's Path features a map that displays what appears to be a massive continent with a variety of different kingdoms and realms.  I was pleased that through the course of the story, I got to visit a fairly good number of these places too.  The kicker is that one location never felt all that different from the next and I never got a sense of atmosphere nor was I able to form a clear picture of the various locations in my head.  There is very little "lay of the land" type development or description in The Dragon's Path. This was a frustrating quality that definitely took away from my enjoyment of the story.

The main characters, who head up chapters as point of view characters much like in GRRM's A Song of Ice and Fire series, were hit or miss for me too.  I definitely enjoyed both Cithrin and Marcus and felt that both characters were well developed and always interesting to read.  On the other hand, Geder, and Kalliam, both of the noble class from the Antean empire, felt more like plot elements than characters.  It seemed to me like Abraham used these two character's actions to move the story along but those actions and the character themselves didn't always seem to match up.  Often, and this happened with both Geder and Kalliam, the character would do something incredibly stupid that would lead to an exciting plot development, but the logic behind the action didn't necessarily make sense for the sake of the character himself.  This aspect led to lots of frustration for me and was totally infuriating at other times.   This also made the "political intrigues" portion of the story come across as pretty amateurish, both in terms of the writing and in terms of the character's actions.

Combine these hit and miss story elements with my (probably too high) high expectations that I had going in and you get a very disappointed reader.  I always feel a bit guilty when I pin expectations on a book or an author, and then get disappointed when the book doesn't meet my hopes and dreams.  That being said, even without the expectations, I would have been disappointed with The Dragon's Path.  I need to have well developed characters, a world I want to explore and a story that fully captures my imagination in order for me to fully hook onto an epic fantasy series, and this one fell well short of those requirements.

Grade: C-

Graphic Novel Review: Transmetropolitan Vol. 2 Lust for Life and Vol. 3 Year of the Bastard

My exploration into Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan series got off to a decent, but not stellar, start last September.  However, there was enough quality to the first volume to interest me in reading and exploring more, and my most recent finals week at university provided the perfect window for some comics reading that would provide an entertaining distraction.

In the second volume, Lust for Life rebel journalist Spider Jerusalem is up to his usual antics, causing trouble and cranking out scathing columns for his newspaper overlords.  In this one he manages to piss off a powerful politician, nearly overdoses on television, and raids a religion convention...and that's all in the first third of the book!  From there the surreal future that Warren Ellis has created rolls on to weirder and more wild places.

For example: There's people who get their consciousness downloaded into tiny machines and become sentient pink fog, Spider's cryogenically frozen ex-wife also makes a an appearance in this one, with a team of assassins  bent on taking out our favorite journalist, and a talking police dog with a crazy personal vendetta against, well you can probably guess who...

Things definitely got pretty weird in this second volume, and I gotta say, I'm pretty glad I'm reading this in collected format because I'm not so sure I'd be able to hang with this comic if I was reading it in single issues.  I definitely think this is a comic that benefits from binge style reading sessions, rather than small doses.  Everything about this comic is intense and a bit overwhelming, and I think it is better to just go all in for a while, then come up for air after a good stretch.

Ellis' writing, which has a very freewheeling/loose cannon feel to it seems to mirror his protagonist's personality.  It almost seems like story lines or maybe more accurately, "focal points" in this comic are picked up and abandoned at a whim as Ellis just plows through one aspect of popular culture after another.  That's not a bad thing, it certainly makes for a comic with a frantic pace and unique personality, but if you are expecting a comic that follows the normal rules and trends you commonly see in comic series, this may give you some surprises.  Instead of 5-6 issue story arcs with clear beginnings, middles and ends, Transmetropolitan is more of a stream of conscious rant or exploration of whatever suits Ellis' fancy.  Ellis will see his ideas through to the end, but they often aren't your typical endings, and they can be a bit cynical too.

Still, this is some incredibly entertaining, insightful, and intelligent stuff.  Pretty tough to get all that in one package, but here it is.

Grade: B+

Since I needed lots of distractions during finals week, I decided to stay aboard the Transmetropolitan train and immediately followed up Lust for Life with volume 3, Year of the Bastard.  This one proved to be the most coherent volume yet, as the whole thing focuses on the presidential election, and what Spider is doing, or more accurately not doing to cover the biggest story of the year.

Instead of getting out there and asking hard questions, getting interviews, and endorsing a candidate, Spider has sunken into bitter rut of pills and apathy.  When he finally gets his shit together enough to get out there and cover the debates, he finds the political situation to be quite an ugly one with two very shitty candidates.

Year of the Bastard is an interesting look at how the political machine works, and I found it especially interesting given the fact that it's an election year.  Ellis puts his usual stamp on the bullshit, the backstabs, the drama that always seem to follow a high profile election.

As I said earlier, this is the most coherent volume yet, and I appreciated the tighter focus on one distinct story line.  Unlike the previous two volumes, this has a more familiar comic story arc feel to it, but with all the weirdness, cynicism and dark humor that are the hallmarks of this series.

I felt like maybe Ellis has hit his stride here in this third volume, and has figured out a direction for the series rather than have it be a loosely focused series of rants and futuristic speculations. From a story standpoint that would be a positive, as I feel like this is a comic that so far has sorta gone the way of Sienfeld  and been  a story about nothing, while covering, well, everything.  Time, and the fourth volume will tell.

The Year of the Bastard also has a pretty great shock ending.  One I was nearly deprived of since my copy was missing the last five pages or so.  Thanks printers.  The ending seemed a little abrupt to me, so on my next trip to the comic shop I glanced through another copy of this same volume, and sure enough: the rest of the story.  I'm very glad I checked because I nearly missed out on a great conclusion to this story arc.  

All told, The Year of the Bastard is the best Transmetropolitan volume yet.  I'll be checking back in with this series before too long.

Grade: A-

2012 Emerald City Comicon

This past weekend I made my annual journey to the Emerald City Comicon.  Well, it wasn't really much of a journey, it was just downtown, but it was still epic.  Like the past two years, I attended the Saturday version of the convention, typically the busiest, craziest day of the con, and this past Saturday was no exception.

Being the nerd that I am, I arrived right at 10 o'clock, exactly when the convention opened it's doors.  However, there was such a monster crowd that it took me about 40 minutes just to get onto the actual convention floor.  I was one very aggravated blogger during those forty long-ass minutes.  Once I actually got into the con I was shocked to see how totally packed it was so early on in the day.  The past two years taught me that the early nerd catches the creator they want to see, but there was no beating the crowds or avoiding of lines on this day, as it was nearly impossible to move through crowds and navigate to the tables of creators I wanted to chat up.

Extended chats with favorite creators were also a difficulty as the lines tended to be pretty lengthy.  I try to not be a dick and keep other people waiting, or monopolize a creator's time but it was a bit disappointing to just mumble a few words of gratitude to Brandon Graham while he signed my stuff.   I did manage to get in a few good chats though.  My best chat came from a favorite comic writer of mine, Kurtis Wiebe who not only remembered me from last year, but also mentioned that he drops by the blog from time to time!  I'd like to think I hid my giddiness well, but when he mentioned that he's read some of Battle Hymns, I grinned like the Cheshire Cat.

My modest haul...

There were many other highlights as well.  I got to chat with Matt Southworth, who had some pages from the new Stumptown issues that'll be out later this year.  From what I've seen, it looks fantastic.  I also spoke to Daryl Gregory who was there for his comic writing endeavors, but was happy to hear that I'm a fan of his prose work as well.  The guy I was most interested in meeting and talking to was Brandon Graham.  I actually made two stops by his table, once for signatures on my issues of Prophet and my copy of King City (review forthcoming), and again when there were less people around to look through his original art.  The art was beautiful, and sadly, just out of my price range, but it was still awesome to check it out.  He also had some of James Stokoe's original art pages from Orc Stain and those are glorious too.    


All told, it was a pretty good day at the con.  I was a little overwhelmed by the crowd which was much larger than past years, but I guess I shouldn't complain too much because it's not everyday I get to meet some of my favorite comic creators, and get to look at beautiful artwork.  Anyway, I know people are probably just reading this to see pictures of people dressed up, so here you go.....

Loki hangin' with some DC peeps. 

This guy was pretty scary as
Scorpion.  He had the physique
and ninja moves to go with the
sweet costume.

The ladies were lining up to
pose with Buzz.

Down in the right hand corner you can just
barely see their donation bucket.
Apparently, the poor economy has effected
even the Avengers.  

Did I crop out the dorky lookin'
Robin? Yes I did.  Just Batwoman
please. 

Easily my favorite
costume from the con.
Bowie from Orc Stain.

I've Gone International!

There have been a few REALLY AWESOME days in the history of Battle Hymns.  The day Michael Sullivan left a comment on my review of The Crown Conspiracy was one, when SFF World asked me to be their comics reviewer was another. The day Niall Alexander became a follower of my blog ranks right up there.  Seriously, it felt really good to see that a blogger who's blog I love likes my blog enough to give it a follow.

I've been a big fan of Niall's blog, The Speculative Scotsman, for a long time so when he asked me to do a guest post for his blog while away on vacation I was honored to be asked.  Niall was kind enough to give me free reign so I wrote up something that is a little bit different from the kind of content I usually put up around here.  My post is a bit of a beginner's guide to comics for the fantasy lover and it's up at The Speculative Scotsman.  It's full of solid comic recommendations no matter what your brand of fantasy is.  Go to there and check it out.

In case you missed it, here's the link again...