So I Read King City

A 250 word (or less) review of King City Complete Series Trade Paperback
By Brandon Graham, Image/Tokyopop comics

King City by Brandon Graham (written, drawn, etc) is well worth a read.  The plot of this book is pretty insane. The protagonist, Joe, a Cat Master ( someone whose cat, Earthling JJ Catingsworth III, is basically a superpowered multi-tool), returns to the metropolis of King City to reconnect with his old life and gets embroiled in a conflict against poorly-defined-evil-forces. Along the way he interacts with his best friend Pete Thaifighter, a kind-of-luchador who is trying to save a water breathing alien lady from extraterrestrial trafficking criminals; and Anna Greengables, his moustache-graffiti artist ex-girlfriend who is dating Maximum Absolute: a war veteran of the Korean Zombie Wars addicted to a zombifying narcotic called Chalk. This insane plot is unabashedly ignored throughout the book in order to focus on whatever off topic thing Mr. Graham felt like drawing (like a King City Board Game, or Connect-the-Dots within story pages). The result of this is that King City, both the book and setting, ends up being this mixing pot of diverse genre fictional influences. Now I am far from as well or widely read in comics (snoot, snoot) as Brandon Graham, but I can clearly see Manga, superhero and sci fi influences all over the place (and a veneer of Moebius). The result is this beautifully rendered celebration of comics from all over the world: comic fusion cuisine. King City is also great value (since I care about this), being 424 pages for ~$25 (CAN). Also it has some exceptionally delightful puns.

Word count: 250.