Brandon Graham tours King City

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on April 3, 2007 Sign up now!

by Chris Arrant, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 4/3/2007

King City is a sprawling metropolis, where a criminal underground has planted roots and grown to be as inextricable as the pavement in the streets. It's a place where a stylish street gang named the Owls runs rampant, and every street corner could be a hidden spy sanctuary or just a good place to get something to eat. With the dangers and criminal enterprise so entwined with the soul of the city, visiting has a certain thrill to it, and living there is almost an award.

The King City graphic novel marks the first mainstream work by a 15-year veteran of the American comics scene, Brandon Graham. After years of work on erotic comics and indie comics (the Meathaus collective, 2004's Escalator), Graham comes into the mainstream as a fresh-faced veteran with a clearly defined and composed story sense and a unique style developed over years of work.

In King City, a young thief named Joe grudgingly returns to the city he once called home. He has a lot of history with King City and its people, most of it not good. There are few remaining he would call friends, and one in particular he grudgingly calls his ex-girlfriend. Trying to get his mind off of those facts, Joe focuses on the job that brought him here. It turns out that Joe is what's called a "Cat Master." Assisting him in his thievery is a special cat, who with a simple injection can be anything: a weapon, a tool or even a cuddly companion.

"I originally conceived of the cat primarily as a tool for Joe. The cat is the ultimate tool/weapon," said Graham. "The fun thing about the cat is that he can do absolutely anything that the cat master can come up with or anything that fits the situation: periscope, skateboard, catapult and more. As the story progresses, the cat's personality becomes more defined. The cat is a genius. When he's not being carried around in a bucket by Joe he's often solving complex math problems trying to unveil the mysteries of the universe."

Joe comes back into King City for a simple job, one that he easily accomplishes. But during the hand-off to the client of what Joe's been paid to steal, it all falls apart. "When Joe shows up, he gets roped in to a plot to stop the resurrection of a long dead demon king that's been living off of the brain of an old man in a coffin," said Graham. "A beautiful and deadly femme fatale has plans for him, but he's really just trying to deal with being home and not being over his last girlfriend. Life's rough even when you've got a super cat."

"King City is all about how deep a town's secret underbelly can go," Graham continued. "Below the surface, there's betting rings on packs of man-eating wild dogs. Delve a little deeper, and there's gangs that traffic in stolen information, and deeper still there's alien porn rings. At the deepest level, there are cannibals resurrecting demon monsters to wipe out humanity. I like playing with the culture of what a city full of spy gangs would be like: spy hotels, secret bars and more."

"On the surface it's really just a cross between how I feel about Seattle and New York City, the two cities I've spent most of my time in," said Graham. "I always think about just how much is going on in a city at any given time. How many mysteries are there in a city block?"

Graham started in the American comic industry in 1992, but much of his work has been under the radar of traditional comics audiences. While he has no regrets about his previous, admittedly "adult," body of work, King City marks his major mainstream debut and his longest work yet. "Brandon's work is both unique and riveting," said Tokyopop editor-in-chief Rob Tokar. "One of the greatest—and most frustrating—things about King City is that its uniqueness makes it so difficult to classify. King City has parts that are funny, poignant, bizarre, ironic and tragic, and all of them fit together seamlessly. It's a story about characters that don't seem to want to do very much, but are still compelling to watch. Brandon's a talented artist with a cinematographer's eye, but the book is full of truly witty dialogue and clever plays on words. In short, King City is tough to explain, but easy to enjoy."

"I read a Raymond Chandler book where he talks about how if you found a copy of one of his books missing the front 20 pages and last 20, that he wanted the reader to still enjoy each chapter by itself. I like that," Graham said. "I've been trying to make the journey more important than where the story is going. My rule when working on this was that if I came up with something that was just for fun then it should bear more weight than anything that just progresses the story. Not that progressing the story can't be fun, but it's so easy to fall into those comic book cliché traps—a chosen one saving humanity from the ultimate evil. Personally, I've read that story too many times."

With King City, Graham is at last poised to get some of the recognition that many think he deserves. "His comics strike a very human chord while staying witty and stylish," said cartoonist Becky Cloonan (DEMO, East Coast Rising), who introduced Graham to Tokyopop. "He's got a style that can be easily read and enjoyed by anyone. Why people aren't singing his praises from the rooftops is beyond me."