I recently finished reading issues 5-12 of Brandon Graham's KING CITY comics. I'm ashamed to admit that, although Brandon Graham's beautiful comics and illustrations have been on my interest "radar" for many years, I just recently got around to purchasing his KING CITY series. Unfortunately, I was unable to find issues 1-4. Overall, it was an engaging read that has me sure to purchase Brandon's future comics work.

King City is about Joe, one of the legendary Cat Masters. Cat Masters are trained to use their cats in battle by injecting them with different serums that give the cat special powers to become a weapon or tool. But Joe's more interested in staring at ladies' bubble butts or helping out his ex-girlfriend than fighting Demon Kings.

Graham's got a very smooth art style. At first glance, it appears to be influenced by manga. But the more you look at it, you begin to realize that Graham's taken inspiration and influence from a variety of disparate styles to create one that is utterly unique and wholly his own. I notice bits of Herge's Tin Tin from the roundness and suggestive simplicity of the character designs. The beautiful women Graham draws remind me of a refreshing mix of Milo Manara, Paul Pope, Ashley Wood and a tiny touch of Jim Mahfood's work. Also, his expansive city scapes have bits of Katsuhiro Otomo, Akira Toriyama, Geoff Darrow, and Moebius.

While reading King City, I was immediately intrigued by the overall style of the characters and environment; so much so, that the main story felt like an excuse to immerse myself into King City's rich world of architecture, culture and characters. Looking at the means by which Brandon Graham tells his story, I got the feeling that the cartoonist felt the same way that I did. The main narrative is frequently interrupted by fun little details like an illustration depicting the contents of a character's pockets (complete with arrows and labels) or a 2-page spread/game board that illustrates 3 different characters walking paths (shown below). Brandon Graham also riddles his panels with words describing various things on the page (and more often than not, done so in the form of a pun). He also occasionally depicts a character's dialogue through iconic illustration (simple doodles of things like 'shit' or 'dick'). This unconventional amalgam of word and illustration gives the reader the freedom to experience the work at a level of immersion that he/she feels most comfortable with. It also forms a linguistic bond between illustration and words. I just ended up reading everything.

Brandon Graham's an amazing talent. I just hope we get to see more of his artwork soon and more frequently. I also am very happy to hear that his next work will be in color. From the looks of his King City covers, it's clear that Graham has a great sent of color. I look forward to seeing what Brandon does once he adds color to his toolbox of materials.

Inspired by Bastien Vives transgendered designs of several classic Street Fighter characters, Gobi decided to do some "gender bending" of his own. Woman/Man/Woman Poison hasn't looked manlier (alongside a voluptuous Hugo). I prefer Gobi's female Hakan design to the uber-masculine original. Be sure to also check out Gobi's design for a female Oro and female Necro at HIS SITE.

Happy New Year in 2011 from our buddy Bill (artist of Red Demon and Dr. Destruction). To join in his 2011 celebration, Bill decided to show how extraterrestrials from the other side of the galaxy PARTY! Krrpk and his fellow party peeps are from Bill's KRRPK comic book series.

To promote Volume 7 of their awesome Zblu Cops comic series (available now in France), Gobi, Bill and a few of their animator friends went to work on this super fresh animated trailer. I'm ashamed to not have posted it sooner... (we were briefly playing around with the idea of doing an English version) but am proud to FINALLY share this amazing bit of animation. Mad respect goes out to Julien Neel who did the music (he's also the cartoonist behind the super successful Lou series). Here's an excellent glimpse into the awesome craziness that exists in the vivid imaginations of Bill and Gobi:

Man, I'm loving me some ORC STAIN.

I've been familiar with James Stokoe's work for a few years now. I bought the first volume of his Wonton Soup comic when it initially came out. I immediately fell in love with Stokoe's art style (a unique mix of manga stylings, Geoff Darrow, and Vaughn Bode)... but was a bit thrown off by Wonton Soup being an intergalactic cooking comic. I was expecting sci-fi fantasy space battles. What I got was a bunch of crazy cooking recipes with intergalactic vegetables and extraterrestrial meats. In Wonton Soup, Stokoe deftly displays his strong sense of storytelling, world building and insane ability to convey a variety of textures through his linework. But I wanted some more ultra-violence!

I'm ashamed to say that initially I passed on ORC STAIN. The covers were beautifully drawn. The main character's design was awesome. But I ended up passing because I'm not that big of a swords & sorcery fan.

Then I read that, in the world of ORC STAIN, sliced orc penis was a symbol of wealth and power (there's even a "how-to" comic on the steps taken to make a chopped orc penis into coins!). That was enough to CONVINCE me to read it!

I am now officially an ORC STAIN fan! It may have taken murmurs of orc penis to read the comic (should I be ashamed?)... but having read the 5 issues that are currently available I'm baffled by the next level brilliance of what Stokoe has created. My geek-love for ORC STAIN is so strong that I bought BOTH the issues 1-5 and TPB collection of those very issues!

Even more so than WONTON SOUP, the world of ORC STAIN is richly realized. From a design and cultural standpoint, James Stokoe has built a brutal world where Orcs social culture of barbarism are seeds from which Stokoe visually and philosophically creates a beautifully bizarre universe.

Go out and buy ORC STAIN. If you still need a bit of convincing, read this FREE PREVIEW OF THE FIRST ISSUE and THEN buy it!

I hope you all have a wonderful year in 2011. It's because of you guys that we can build our little corner in the zany world of comics and toys. For that we are eternally grateful! Let's hope 2011 is a fun, adventurous and fulfilling year for us all!

Below are Happy New Year's illustrations by Ohm (Figure designer for our Tcho! Minis) and Fabien M (King Katch character and figure designer).