King City: awesomely weird, silly/funny sf comic

King City collects Brandon Graham's magnificent Tokyo Pop comic serial in one mammoth, $11 (cheap!) trade paperback edition, and man, is that a deal.

Take the sprawling, weird, perverse cityscape of Transmetropolitan, mix in the goofy, punny humor of Tank Girl, add ultraviolent gang warfare, the impending resurrection of a death-god, and a secret society of cat-masters whose feline familiars can serve as super-weapons and tactical material, and you're getting in the neighbourhood of King City.

Graham's black-and-white line drawings have the detail of a two-page spread in MAD Magazine and a little bit of Sergio Argones in their style, if Argones was more interested in drawing the battle-scarred veterans of a Korean xombie war who consume each others' powdered bones to drive away the madness.

Despite the fact that this is a very, very funny story, it manages to be more than a comedy. Joe the cat-master's lost love, Pete the bagman's moral crisis, and Max the veteran's trauma are all real enough to tug at your heart-strings, even as you read the goofy puns off the fine-print labels on the fetishistically detailed illustrations showing King City and its weird and wonderful inhabitants.

JWZ wrote "It's the best comic-book-type thing I've read in quite some time. The trade is a huge phonebook-sized thing and it's awesome." He's right.

King City (via JWZ)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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http://lemoutan.blogspot.com/ Lemoutan

$11 amazon.com translates to £12 amazon.co.uk. Interesting.
winter67uk

After last week’s disappointing material collected into a collection, I look forward to this week’s serial collected into a mammoth trade paperback edition. That sounds like it holds a lot of serial, which I like with milk.
http://egypt.urnash.com Egypt Urnash

King City is a lot of fun. I’m looking forwards to Multiple Warheads, his next personal project.

Graham has also been involved in a reboot of Leifeld’s “Prophet” that is mind-boggling; he’s described where he’s aiming for as “Conan in Space”. It’s been delightfully inventive and clever so far, and has been getting me into the comics shop on a regular basis again for the first time in years.
- http://www.facebook.com/brian.quinn.319 Brian Quinn
  
  could not agree more in regards to getting my butt in a shop too. And tomorrow seesthe release of the Prophet issue that Brandon illustrated as well. Can’t wait!
firmanfajar

Interesting book
sarble montegue

Buy local!
It’s $19 on the back cover. Which is still a massive value for 400+ pages of awesome.
Go pick it up at your local comic shop.

bad cory, no doughnut.