Joe is a young man with no home, no purpose, and almost no friends...though he does have a very special cat. With a simple injection, Joe's cat can be anything: a weapon, a tool, or even a cuddly companion. But what, if anything, can transform Joe?!

Critically acclaimed comics vet Brandon Graham has the answer as he welcomes you to King City—an outrageous, semi-futuristic city full of spy gangs, alien porn, and reasonably priced diners!

Max        
Full name: Maximum Absolute
Max is Anna's current boyfriend and a veteran of the Korean xombie wars. As a soldier in that conflict, Max is scarred, lost one of his legs (in a battle with an 8-armed Xombie queen called the nagxatt), and became addicted to Chalk, a drug that protected the soldiers from becoming Zombies, but also curses users with nightmares if they don't keep using it. Another interesting side-effect is that the drug slowly transforms users into Chalk itself, and, once users start "shedding", they have a steady supply of the drug until so much of them is transformed that they die. Though addicted to this deadly drug, Max is a decent guy. 
           
Tooth       
Max's chalk dealer and fellow veteran of the Korean xombie war.
       
Anna       
Tough and cute with gum in her hair and brass knuckles in her pocket. She was with Joe for years, now she lives with her new boyfriend Max who survived the xombie wars that are currently being fought in Korea.  Anna is more alive than anyone but always in the middle of trouble.  

The Cat (Earthling J.J. Catingsworth the 3rd)        
Out west, the spy gang The Party breeds super cats that they pass on to people that they hope will use them to break the power structure of the Eye Focus.The cat is a genius that can do anything. To do the more amazing tasks such as becoming a parachute or vomiting out missiles he needs an injection of cat juice. He's working at a much higher level than a person, though he usually seems sleepy or just unconcerned with the tasks he's given and is often seen working out complex math problems trying to solve the mysteries of the universe. Joe has raised the cat from a kitten and they are rarely apart. Joe carries the cat everywhere in a bucket.

Joe       
A small time lock picker, big time nose picker and pubic urinator. He is scruffy and unkempt, going through life with tangled hair and a Conan-esque grimace. He was not missed by many people in King. Only Pete and the cat truly like Joe. His ex Anna loved him for years but never liked him. He's aware of this but it doesn't concern him much. He does regret losing Anna but treats it like an act of god that he had no say in. Joe's goals never go far beyond the moment. He would never dream of using the near limitless potential of the cat for anything more than petty crime. He swears constantly and only refers to the cat as "the cat."

Pete       
Joe's best and most loyal friend, Pete is a nice guy who likes to build puzzles and raise plants, he doesn't eat meat and doesn't swear, he always tries to do the right thing. He works odd jobs for the gangs in King City. He does what he has to but doesn't always feel good about it.   

The Octopus       
A bartender who is an associate of Joe & Pete. 

Beebay       
A sexy mystery of a woman. She has her fingers in everything. She leads Joe to the truth about the Eye Focus plot to resurrect the demon king. It's always unclear what her real goals are. It is clear that she wants things to improve but doesn’t want them to change as dramatically as The Party. She works within the Eye Focus even as she works against it. Beebay's almost bored with how easy it is for her and she longs for a challenge. "I want a man that's as irresistible as a pack of cigarettes."  

King City       
King City is a culture of spies where everything worth knowing is hidden and everyone has got something to hide. There are aliens and monsters hidden behind every door.    

       

Before I write a single word about the story of King City, I must first issue an apology to Brandon Graham, the mad genius behind it all. When I first heard of King City way back when I had more hair, I was told it was about “a guy that uses a cat as a weapon.” That alone brought a smile to my face (how could it not?). But my very next thought was “yeah, but after that joke grows old, what else is there to it?”  

Flash forward to two years later as my boss places a copy of King City vol. 1 upon the teetering geometric anomaly that is the stack of manga on my desk. “Congratulations--you’re the new editor for King City.” To be perfectly honest, I was so wrapped up in my own global manga projects that I had nearly forgotten about King City and the “cat weapon.” I was eager to see if the weird premise could sustain the weight of 160 plus pages.

Let’s just say it could've been 300 pages--and I would’ve still wanted more.

Yes, everything I had first heard about it from inception was there.

First, there's the lead character of Joe, the spy/rebel/slacker/cat master. Joe is part Philip Marlowe, part James Bond, with a dash of Turk 182 and The Big Lebowski thrown in for good measure.

Then there’s Joe’s cat Earthling, a combination of Swiss army knife/katana blade/skateboard/…well, whatever Joe needs him to be at any particular moment.   

The other characters in the story are equally as engaging. From Pete, Joe’s naïve friend that stumbles into the role of protector, to Anna, the beautiful thorn in Joe’s heart, to Max, the troubled war vet with a deadly addiction. They are all connected, and their stories bring a surprising amount of heart and soul to what could have easily been a jaunt down the slippery slope of style over substance, weird for the sake of being weird.

But that’s just skimming the surface. King City itself is as much a character as the people that walk its twisted streets. As if plucked from a child’s dream, it is a place where a sasquatch can be your landlord, wars are fought with chainsaw swords, and behind nearly every sign lies a secret passage to a secret room where even more secrets are whispered--into the ear of a creature with nipples made of bone.

Every page, every panel of Brandon’s art is brimming with discovery for those with the patience to simply look beyond the foreground. No, this is not a story to blow through while waiting for your latte at you favorite caffeine hidey-hole. This is a story with art that commands you to take your time and graze, to look beyond the guy with the cat to the details around him. In short, the experience can be as rich as you want it to be.

But back to the cat. The cat is freaking badass. He is the Bill Gannon to Joe’s Friday, and a more valuable partner I couldn’t imagine. Joe needs only to inject Earthling with the right concoction to choose from what seems to be an endless array of functions. If you can imagine the cheesy Adam West Batman series, in which the crusader seemed to have a gadget for every occasion (“shark repellent spray,” I’m looking at you), then you can begin to get a sense of what the cat brings to the table. Earthling is James Bond’s Q on paws…minus the bad teeth. So when the big bad of the story rises from the depths to attack those Joe holds dear…well, let’s just say this kitty’s claws are only the tip of the arsenal iceberg.

So I am sorry, Brandon. Sorry that I initially wrote this manga off as a one-joke ditty that would wear out its welcome faster than Michael Richards at a NAACP rally. Most of all, I’m sorry I wasn’t around to witness you building volume one, brick by impossibly outrageous brick.

But there’s always volume two, isn’t there?

~Troy Lewter, Editor