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
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!
Brandon Graham draws comics like bull dwang draws flies. He was born in December of 1976, the grandson of pin-up artist Bill Randall. He grew up in west Seattle with a childhood full of comic books. He quit high school after six months. Since then he's worked on a bunch of commercial art jobs but always kept his comics work first. His stories include October Yen (Antarctic Press), Universe so Big (Radio Comix) and Escalator (Alternative) along with work for DC comics, Spin magazine, Heavy metal, Meathaus and Spumco. He is a tall 6 foot 5 inches, drinks root beer, grape soda and coffee mixed with hot chocolate (an admixture he dubs "hot coffilate"). He keeps the hours of the undead.
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.
COMIC PANTS REVIEWI’ve been waiting for this one a while, ever since I heard from creator Brandon Graham that he was working on it, right after I reviewed his fantastic graphic novel
Escalator from Alternative Comics. Graham’s graffiti-flavored artwork is a treat, and his wild premise ideas tend to be a delight as well.
King City, a “semi-futuristic city full of spy gangs, alien porn and reasonably priced dinosaurs” sounds like the perfect place for his idiosyncratic sensibilities. His lead character is a slacker with a cat that can transform into anything, to give you a taste of Graham’s unusual ideas. Worth a look for most fans, but especially those who dig stuff like Dan Hipp's
Amazing Joy Buzzards, Jim Mahfood’s art and Grant Morrison’s flights of fancy. You can read a feature on King City and Graham at Newsarama.
~ Comic Pants
PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY REVIEW
King City is a sprawling metropolis, where a criminal underground has planted roots and grown to be as inextricable as the pavement in the streets. It's a place where a stylish street gang named the Owls runs rampant, and every street corner could be a hidden spy sanctuary or just a good place to get something to eat. With the dangers and criminal enterprise so entwined with the soul of the city, visiting has a certain thrill to it, and living there is almost an award.
The King City graphic novel marks the first mainstream work by a 15-year veteran of the American comics scene, Brandon Graham. After years of work on erotic comics and indie comics (the Meathaus collective, 2004's Escalator), Graham comes into the mainstream as a fresh-faced veteran with a clearly defined and composed story sense and a unique style developed over years of work.
In King City, a young thief named Joe grudgingly returns to the city he once called home. He has a lot of history with King City and its people, most of it not good. There are few remaining he would call friends, and one in particular he grudgingly calls his ex-girlfriend. Trying to get his mind off of those facts, Joe focuses on the job that brought him here. It turns out that Joe is what's called a "Cat Master." Assisting him in his thievery is a special cat, who with a simple injection can be anything: a weapon, a tool or even a cuddly companion.
"I originally conceived of the cat primarily as a tool for Joe. The cat is the ultimate tool/weapon," said Graham. "The fun thing about the cat is that he can do absolutely anything that the cat master can come up with or anything that fits the situation: periscope, skateboard, catapult and more. As the story progresses, the cat's personality becomes more defined. The cat is a genius. When he's not being carried around in a bucket by Joe he's often solving complex math problems trying to unveil the mysteries of the universe."
Joe comes back into King City for a simple job, one that he easily accomplishes. But during the hand-off to the client of what Joe's been paid to steal, it all falls apart. "When Joe shows up, he gets roped in to a plot to stop the resurrection of a long dead demon king that's been living off of the brain of an old man in a coffin," said Graham. "A beautiful and deadly femme fatale has plans for him, but he's really just trying to deal with being home and not being over his last girlfriend. Life's rough even when you've got a super cat."
"King City is all about how deep a town's secret underbelly can go," Graham continued. "Below the surface, there's betting rings on packs of man-eating wild dogs. Delve a little deeper, and there's gangs that traffic in stolen information, and deeper still there's alien porn rings. At the deepest level, there are cannibals resurrecting demon monsters to wipe out humanity. I like playing with the culture of what a city full of spy gangs would be like: spy hotels, secret bars and more."
"On the surface it's really just a cross between how I feel about Seattle and New York City, the two cities I've spent most of my time in," said Graham. "I always think about just how much is going on in a city at any given time. How many mysteries are there in a city block?"
Graham started in the American comic industry in 1992, but much of his work has been under the radar of traditional comics audiences. While he has no regrets about his previous, admittedly "adult," body of work, King City marks his major mainstream debut and his longest work yet. "Brandon's work is both unique and riveting," said Tokyopop editor-in-chief Rob Tokar. "One of the greatest—and most frustrating—things about King City is that its uniqueness makes it so difficult to classify. King City has parts that are funny, poignant, bizarre, ironic and tragic, and all of them fit together seamlessly. It's a story about characters that don't seem to want to do very much, but are still compelling to watch. Brandon's a talented artist with a cinematographer's eye, but the book is full of truly witty dialogue and clever plays on words. In short, King City is tough to explain, but easy to enjoy."
"I read a Raymond Chandler book where he talks about how if you found a copy of one of his books missing the front 20 pages and last 20, that he wanted the reader to still enjoy each chapter by itself. I like that," Graham said. "I've been trying to make the journey more important than where the story is going. My rule when working on this was that if I came up with something that was just for fun then it should bear more weight than anything that just progresses the story. Not that progressing the story can't be fun, but it's so easy to fall into those comic book cliché traps—a chosen one saving humanity from the ultimate evil. Personally, I've read that story too many times."
With King City, Graham is at last poised to get some of the recognition that many think he deserves. "His comics strike a very human chord while staying witty and stylish," said cartoonist Becky Cloonan (DEMO, East Coast Rising), who introduced Graham to Tokyopop. "He's got a style that can be easily read and enjoyed by anyone. Why people aren't singing his praises from the rooftops is beyond me."
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