story JIM ZUBKAVICH
art CHRIS STEVENS, EDWIN HUANG & MISTY COATS
cover CHRIS STEVENS“ONE THOUSAND OPAS AND A DEAD BODY”
No one knows where these two warriors came from. The only thing that’s clear is that they’re two of most ornery, trouble-making $%@# that have ever lived.SKULLKICKERS is a fantasy action-comedy: Two mercenaries are entangled in a high-class assassination plot and nothing–werewolves, skeletons or black magic–will stop them from getting paid. If you love tabletop fantasy RPGs or movies like Army of Darkness, SKULLKICKERS is waiting for you!
In one week, a brand new Image book will be debuted on the market: SKULLKICKERS! I got the opportunity to chat with Jim Zubkavich, writer of the book, but also read it super early. So with enough time for Skullkickers to properly digest in my comic reading tummy, what are my thoughts on the first issue?
Find out behind the jump.
Skullkickers has a very obvious goal from the start: it wants to make you laugh, and it wants to kick in some skulls while you do so. To say that it does so right from the bat is to put it lightly.
Skullkickers revolves around two mercenaries without names. In search of gold and a good fight, the book opens with a fast paced battle against a werewolf, setting a quite appropriate precedent for the time of story to come. They make quite a pairing of a buddy cop team filled with classic buddy team tropes: you have your short tempered hot head, and your larger more calm bruiser. Imagine Gimli hanging around with (a more well spoken) Fezzik and you’ll get a good idea of the team at hand. The two buy into a gig which goes wrong, and thus our inciting incident is played and our two “heroes” are off to fight black magic and somewhat save the day.
The book feels very at home with it’s setting, and it’s something that Zubkavich is comfortable with. The medieval setting here functions very well, with the main characters feeling rather appropriately written and placed. It’s actually, in many ways, reminiscent of classic Saturday morning cartoons such as the Pirates of Dark Water. The comic effectively reaches a level that feels like it’d work well in an all ages setting, in that the two main characters are bumbling enough to both amuse young children on a base level and adult audiences on a more established level. The book also sets itself up rather well for having a grand adventure in store, and the amount of work set to plotting here is apparent by the smoothness in the writer.
Edwin Huang is a newcomer with this title, but his work is going to impress a lot of people. Having a clear manga influence in the vein of David Lafuente, Huang manages to give off a very cool look to the book. It is both comical in it’s appearance and light hearted enough to invoke comedic overtones as well as bad ass enough when it’s appropriate to feature some good old fashioned monster ass kicking. This is Skullkickers, after all. Huang has a very nice new style to his work, with very clear inflections in his character to properly portray their nature.
Skullkickers is a hell of a good time of a comic book. A strong first issue, Zubkavich has a very open love for what he’s doing and the medium. With an obvious talent like Huang, the two are sure to do good things with this up and coming title.
Final Verdict: 8.2 – Buy
