Sneaky Peeks
If you care at all about comics, you need to go here, now.
Ok, there’s some cool stuff at the top there….some great illustrations, some preview pages, some cartoonist-y chatter….
Oh hey! What’s this at the bottom? King City 2, Chapter 1?
For those of you not in the know, King City Vol. 1 is 2007’s breakout graphic novel by Seattle cartoonist Brandon Graham, whose previous works include the Elevator collection from Alternative Comics, and a handful of erotic comics for Amerotica. The book came seemingly out of nowhere, filling the minds of comics readers everywhere with a vision of a dirty, streetwise future in a sprawling sci-fi city populated by spies who use cats as weapons,veterans who can’t forget the zombies they fought in Korea, and addicts whose bodies slowly become the drug they consume. It’s a wildly imaginative book that packs bizarre asides and puns into a story that’s actually heartfelt and sensitive.
These first pages from King City Vol. 2 showcase the wild flights of fancy that Graham’s story often takes, highlighting the main character’s training as a cat master (a spy who uses a cat like Batman uses his utility belt and gadgets), along with plenty of eye candy (the overhead establishing shot of the King City freeways is particularly nice) and background puns (”cervix entrance”….heh).It’s definitely a book to look forward to.
And that’s where this gets bittersweet. See, King City Vol. 1 was put out by Tokyopop, and their recent shakeups have left the future of King City, like many of their other OEL manga books, in doubt and maybe in search of a new publisher. That’s if the company decides to release the rights to these books back to their creators.This aprticular book has a confirmed publisher for it’s french language edition, but the non-francophone among us will have to wait and see what happens before we get to sink our teeth into a print version.
Silver linings? With no deadline, the book is getting longer, with scenes that weren’t originally going to make the cut being reconsidered and added back in. Also, it looks like we’re going to be treated to new chapters on his Livejournal periodically, until a deal is worked out, or until it’s all online. Or, I guess, until he changes his mind. Also, Multiple Warheads, his Eisner nominated floppy-format serial that’s being published by Oni Press, is still safe and set to reappear soon, so the world won’t be deprived of his talent for too long.