Off the Cape: Infinite Kung Fu

Written and Illustrated by Kagan McLeod

Infinite Kung Fu walks you through familiar corridors in the house of martial mayhem, but still smashes your face through walls of wonder and into rooms where kung fu is afraid to go.

Catastrophe has knocked most of the world back to the middle ages – and to make matters worse, the dead are rising from the grave as zombies (reincarnation gone wrong)! In this world, where the way of the fist is a way of life, ex-soldier Lei Kung must infiltrate the evil emperor’s five kung fu armies and stop him from destroying all life on the planet. Allegiances are blurred as techniques are perfected, and Lei Kung becomes less certain who’s friend and who’s foe in each chapter!

Fists fly, limbs are lost and blood vessels burst in this tale of furious rivals, supernatural masters, walking corpses, and above all, raging kung fu! — a 464-page deluxe flexi-cover graphic novel, 6.75″ x 9.5″

Top Shelf is not a company that is unused to releasing quality books, but in the coming months they have a list of high profile releases that would be the envy of any publisher. In the coming weeks within Off the Cape, Matt and I will be looking at the five of them: Jess Fink’s Chester 5000, Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1969, Nate Powell’s Any Empire, Ludovic Debeurme’s Lucille, and, to start, Kagan McLeod’s Kung Fu epic Infinite Kung Fu.

Check out my thoughts on Infinite Kung Fu after the jump, and if you want to sample it yourself you can go here for the first half of the book.

What all can be said about Kagan McLeod’s Infinite Kung Fu? This long gestating project has been one of love for McLeod, taking his passion for Kung Fu films and smashing it together with the vast potential the comic medium gives its creator. Even though I previously was unfamiliar with McLeod’s work, this is a stunning and remarkably superb book that delivers great visuals (that is McLeod’s trade after all) as well as a measured and highly entertaining story fit for both fans of Kung Fu or those just looking for a good yarn.

Every aspect of the book is well done. From the get go, you are given an introduction from Kung Fu legend Gordon Liu (you may know him as Pai Mei from Kill Bill) and a foreword from film guru Colin Geddes. While readers may be prone to skipping these, I recommend otherwise. Both do an excellent job of preparing the reader for the story, with the former delving into the history of Kung Fu on film while the latter takes you through what led McCleod to make this title. Your reading experience would not suffer if you skipped them, but I found the both of them to be enlightening.

Once you jump into the story, McLeod delivers it in a method that can be described as episodic, telling portions of the story in a manner that helps push the story forward while also developing the present and past of this new world he has created. Many audacious creators have taken a stab at telling a sprawling story of this sort with their first major work and failed because the pieces don’t fit together, but McLeod’s story structure aids him in making everything work together brilliantly.

Every page matters from an individual standpoint and their power only improves when looked within the context of the whole. The chi is strong in this one, my friends.

McCleod as a writer has a gift for paying tribute to a genre while also striking out on his own. His bridging of Kung Fu, horror (with the zombie plague that is overwhelming the world) and even hints of blaxploitation is seamless, with each aspect fitting together in a way that just accentuates their individual greatness. While non Afrodisiac or blaxploitation fans might find the latter aspect (namely Moog Joogular’s character) out of place in a martial arts epic, even the staunchest of opponents would struggle to argue against its effectiveness.

The story is also very funny in parts, and the levity these moments bring prevent the story from growing heavy handed or even unintentionally hilarious. Some intense and ridiculous things happen in this book, but McLeod is such an ace he never lets it fall into any traps because of his ability to match any genre and situation into his tone throughout the book.

With each aspect of the story achieving proper balance, the exciting journey McLeod creates is given every opportunity to shine through. And shine it does, with the story of Yang Lei Kung saving the world from the evil Emperor being a frequently unexpected and always exciting tale. From a conceptual standpoint, this book is straight up awesome. Check it.

8 immortals work to stave off the apocalypse as a maniacal ghost warlord brings destruction to the world via their former pupils. Only the last and greatest pupil – he of the Infinite Kung Fu – can save the world, but can he reject laziness, his love of wine and the allure of poison Kung Fu long enough to achieve his goal? Plus, zombies!

How does that not sound amazing?

The cast of characters are well developed and unique, never feeling overly familiar. The storyline is never derivative, with the episodic manner of storytelling piecing together that builds into an exciting climax that brings all aspects together perfectly. Genre tropes are respected but never overly leaned on, as we see plenty of student/teacher moments as well as many superb action sequences that never give in to cliche.

Basically, for a guy whom I was mostly unfamiliar with previously, McLeod has a gift for storytelling that is respectful of the genre while also feeling fresh and exciting. This book is incredibly fun, and by the end you find yourself both uncertain of how it will end but also very invested to see how it will. As a student of the genre, it is easy to see McLeod becoming the master within these very pages.

This is of course all aided by the visual aspect of this book. This is what McLeod hangs his hat on, and with good reason – the guy is an incredibly gifted and very versatile artist.

Before I get into that, I have to praise him on the lettering. I could be wrong, but I believe this was all him, and it was all flawless. The main lettering is consistent, fitting to the story, and a perfect choice through and through. Even more exciting is the use of calligraphy and brush fonts that add to the realism within the book. This added to each chapters beginning, giving them weight and an odd sense of the mystical that I greatly enjoyed. Even the onomatopoeia used often were written in brushstroke as well.

McLeod’s art is black and white, and he is a master of tone and linework. Everything is tight and given significant weight thanks to the ink shading, and the character design is uniformly great. Just like their personalities, each player has a unique look that sets them apart. Some are differentiated with simple things like weight or height, others are set apart with accessories like a mule that they ride backwards or an afro. These little bits of separation aid the readers experience and allow you to focus on the story at hand, and I am thankful he did not get bogged down with this design aspect.

Action sequences are packed with energy, as you get a real sense of motion on the page. While reading, it is easy to imagine McLeod channeling his years of Kung Fu film watching experience into mentally plotting out these segments. To figure them out in his head is impressive, but to actually render them in a way that works logically and from a storytelling standpoint? That is even more so.

One of my favorite aspects of the book are the page layouts. Every page feels different, and this is clearly an artist who has mastered page design and the usage of white space. Some of the chapter transition pages are just character matted against a white background, and they are so striking I would find myself stuck on them, taking in each bit of detail for minutes before moving on.

Another thing I loved was that no two pages seemed to have the same layout. Their diversity keeps the eye thirsty for details. I love the way he creates the panels as well, as some times the page will be given clean black boxes for the art, others will bring back the calligraphy brush to make rough boxes (typically when there is a lot of action on the page), and sometimes they ignore the limitations of panels altogether and have one panel actually physically interact with another panel on the page. Phenomenal job by McLeod and his team, as these aspects greatly improve the reading experience throughout.

This epic tale of Kung Fu, good vs. evil, and a whole lot more is a masterfully crafted ode to an underrepresented genre from a very talented creator. Coming into the read, I was inexplicably excited. I had only read the summary of it from Top Shelf’s PR materials, but what I read sold me entirely.

This book was far greater than my high expectations were for it, and that is saying something.

Very few books can be so engrossing and grin inducing, yet Infinite Kung Fu does that from cover to cover. This is the comic Kagan McLeod has wanted to tell his whole life, and what came out is a masterfully told epic that can match up well with any of the films that inspired it. If you are looking for a book that is incredibly well told, both from a written and artistic standpoint, while also being completely unlike anything you’ve ever read, make sure to pick up Infinite Kung Fu in July from Top Shelf.

You won’t regret it.

Final Verdict: 9.5 – Buy