Wednesday, 25 December 2013

So I Read I Kill Giants

A 250 word (or less) review of the I Kill Giants graphic novel
By Joe Kelly and JM Ken Niimura; Image Comics



I Kill Giants is the story of Barbara Thorson, a girl who is obsessed with killing giants. She knows the giants are coming and that it is absolutely up to her to wield the mighty hammer Coveleski to slay her gigantic foes and protect her family from certain destruction. Barbara is also an elementary school student where she is a dorky, Dungeons and Dragons obsessed loner with a penchant for offending authority. And yet there is something else Barabara must deal with, another monstrous reality that she cannot face. And so instead she kills giants. I Kill Giants is a pretty heartfelt comic that tells a story that, like some sort of emotions singularity, just drags empathy out of you. It is also a pretty clever comic, balancing the opposing forces of fantasy and reality to sort of play with that fuzzy space inbetween in this pretty interesting way. I Kill Giants is a pretty fun comic too: the story has an energy to it, characters are vibrant, and Barabara is pretty hilarious. But I think the thing that nabs me most is that I found the comic eminently relatable. Shockingly, I was a pretty dorky kid who, before I found my peeps, leaned into the fictional world (your sci-fi, your fantasy, etc) to get through the special hell of the educational system. Now, my situation was nowhere as tough as Barbara's, but I get where she is coming from, in a way I too killed giants. Try it.

Word count: 249

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