For the last year, I’ve written quite a bit about Image Comics’ off-beat fantasy/action series Skullkickers and virtually every time I do so, I make note of the fact that its “the fantasy crap that I actually like” or “weird fantasy that works” or in the case of the labels for this very article, “fantasy that don’t suck”. I’ve never really made an effort to clarify what I meant by this (and no one reads my stuff enough to need clarification anyway), so for Friday Rec today I want to expound a bit on what makes Skullkickers a book to watch in today’s flooded comic market.
Clickeroo, ya mooks!
I think I need to make one thing really clear before moving forward with this article: I despise Dungeons and Dragons. Now, granted, I haven’t had any real encounters with it since I was 13, but what I can remember through the middle school haze leaves me cold. Contrived plot twists, fans that get just a little TOO into it (I’m all for engaging deeply with one’s media of choice, but when you lose your anchor to reality is when you need to start thinking about stepping back) and general subcultural cues that just made me want to rage way more than they made me want to participate.
Throughout high school and college, I actively avoided high concept fantasy in basically all it’s forms. I was never an MMORPG kid, I still haven’t completed Lord of the Rings and it took me until I was 23 to get over my distate of cosplay enough to even consider going to a Comic Convention. However, one light week in late 2010 lead me to a book called Skullkickers. I had just recently gotten into Image Comics in a big way, eating up trades of Invincible, Chew and The Walking Dead and sinking my teeth into a brand new book called Morning Glories. In other words, this was my “Image Comics can do no wrong” phase (that is still mostly in effect). So when I saw they were launching a brand new series (on a week with two books in my pull), I took a chance on the book based on cover art and name only.
It took me until about page 2 to realize that I had wandered into territory I had once avoided. Fat werewolves, dwarves, spells, mystical looking guns; “uh oh”, I said to myself, “I think this may be a fantasy book”. Once I calmed myself down enough to keep reading though, I quickly became charmed by the off-beat dialogue, bizarre characters and entirely modern storytelling. However, what really won me over was that, for the first time I can really remember, I was reading a high concept fantasy book that included absolutely zero self indulgience. More than most comics out there, Skullkickers seemed to only be preoccupied with having fun and telling a raunchy, gorey story in a universe with elements that were familiar to most (even me) if not all. By issue 3, I was hooked for life, and there are more than a few reasons why.
First of all are the characters themselves. Despite the second volume of the book revealing their names to be Rex Maraud and Rolf Copperhead, they will always and forever be known simply as Baldy and Shorty. Brains (sorta) and Brawn. A more archetypal duo you will not see, but every bit of the cultural and fictional influences that make up the characters is used to maximum affect, making them feel like your old friends almost right off the bat simply due to them feeling and acting like so many childhood favorites (cruder versions of them, granted). As they bumble their way through their adventures, you can’t help but feel for them on a very basic level.
However, despite attachement being easy to the develope for the duo, Skullkickers is unique in the sense that is the one comic where I don’t feel like I’m missing something by not knowing more about them. Character depth is profoundly not the point of the book. Whereas some comics are driven forward by the intricacies of the characters’ pasts and personalities, Skullkickers is an extremely frontal book. You get the minimum you need to know to have the story makes sense and then ACTION ACTION ACTION VIOLENCE BLOOD POOPJOKE POOPJOKE POOPJOKE END. It’s funny, that exact sequence is very similar to ones I cite for comics that universally suck and yet with this book it is what makes it as good as it is. Tongue in cheek humor is one that many comic writers try and fail completely at. And I mean completely completely. Yet Jim Zub totally gets it. Sometimes the best way to really tell a joke is to just tell it and damn the consequences. I’m sure there are plenty of people who pick up this book and put it down mortified and disgusted. Well, I say screw em! They need to grow a sense of humor.
Continued belowHowever, despite the strength of the barebones storytelling, the book would be nothing without the pencils of Edwin Huang. Despite my general distate for Manga, I generally love it when western (or western style) comic artists bring points of style over from the far east and Huang is, quite simply, one of the best to do it. It takes a very fine, specified approach to combine east and west the way he does and while character design is very strongly based in the eastern style, momentum, character interaction, page layout and the relationship of characters to their surroundings is very much modeled after the western/American comic playbook. I have an uninked Huang sketch hanging on my wall at home and, take it from me, the level of detail the guy puts into his pencils as nothing short of impressive. Even with simple, bare pencils lines, the characters pop off the page. That, combined with the colors of Misty Coats creates one of the most unique, eye popping looks in comics today.
However, one of the things I like the most about the Skullkickers-verse is the extent to which collaboration is used to create a vibrant universe. No, I’m not just talking about the folks that come together to create each issue, I’m talking about Tavern Tales. So far, in issue’s 6 and 12, the series has taken a break from regularly scheduled programming to become an anthology book with stories from a multitude of different writers and artists that each bring something unique to the universe. In some cases, Skullkickers is one of the first open source ongoing series, that periodically opens its down to new and largely up and coming creators to make their mark on the story. Using these issues as stop-gaps between arcs has worked so far, and if there is any justice in the world they will continue indefinitely as the book lives out its long and healthy run.
Ultimately, Skullkickers is not a book for everyone. However, I’ve been taking the temperature of the comic book community for some time now, and I’m betting there is a sizeable portion of the comic reading populace that will openly admit to liking A)Fantasy, B) Fantasy Violence, C)Black Humor, D)Beautifully Rendered Scenes Features Stoned Dwarves, E)Extreme Fantasy Violence or F) all of the above. Given that fact, the audience of Skullkickers should easily be three times as high as it is. So go out and make it happen!
