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Underground > Comic Books >

Brandon Graham's King City and Escalator

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15:07 / 21.01.05

My friend Brandom Graham just came out with a paperback collection of his short stories, called Escalator, from Alternative Press. I've known this guy for years and his stuff is primo... he just got a nice review over at The Fourth Rail, who also helped springboard Farel Dalrymple's POP GUN WAR to fame & fortune:

http://www.thefourthrail.com/reviews/snapjudgments/011705/escalator.shtml

Check it out... I highly recommend it.

10:11 / 31.01.05

That sounds great. I wonder where I can get hold of it in the UK?

13:14 / 31.01.05

hmmm...I'll ask about UK sales. I'll get back to you via PM with an answer if I find one.

16:43 / 31.01.05

Figured I'd put this up here for anyone who's interested:

If the book has sold out at your stores, you can get it at:

http://www.marsimport.com/display_comic?ID=8719

That's the link from Alternative Comics' website.

17:13 / 31.01.05

Graham, Herpich, and James Jean and Farel Dalrymple were part of small press anthology called Meathaus that had 6 issues published over the last few years. It was really good stuff - each issue was printed in a different size and format.

18:18 / 10.02.06

Newsarama has an article about Brandon Graham's new TokyoPop book (coming out later this year), called King City:

check it out.

13:33 / 07.05.07

KING CITY just came out, and I highly recommend it... a really unique adventure story. In ToykoPop's manga-sized format. It's about a guy who has a cat that can do anything -- the cat is an all-purpose weapon (the cat just needs various injections to awaken its super-powers/abilities). Also, zombie wars and romance, spies and intrigue. And a character named Pete Thai Fighter who wears a ski mask kind of thing over his head, much like "Mush Mouth" from the old 'Fat Albert' cartoons in the US. Worth checking out!

13:42 / 07.05.07

(and don't worry mods; I won't post anymore on this thread if no one responds - I honestly recommend the book and this guy's work, not just because he's a friend of mine. But I realize that only 1 person responded the first time I posted about Brandon Graham, so I won't prolong it if no one engages here. I know Barbelith people like quality indie-flavored stuff, so I wanted to bring it to people's attention.

The book is sort of Scott Pilgrim-ish in tone and art style, although not really as wacky/comedy-oriented. Hard to categorize, that King City...)

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

14:27 / 07.05.07

KING CITY'S out? I'll need to look for it, I saw some samples a while ago and was interested.

18:11 / 07.05.07

(samples of KING CITY are in the Newsarama interview linked directly above, by the way)

13:14 / 08.05.07

I picked up ESCALATOR a year or two ago at my local shop, and then sought out back issues of OCTOBER YEN and UNIVERSE SO BIG. Not disappointed yet.

I haven't checked bookstores yet, but hopefully KING CITY proves a hit with the "Tweeners Sitting On The Floor Reading Manga At Borders" demographic.

15:07 / 09.05.07

I am devouring this book and it is making smile from ear to ear on the subway. I'm telling everyone I know about it...and honestly, not cause I know the guy, cause we all know just because you're friends with someone doesn't mean they're a creative genius.

KING CITY is seriously on a par with Scott Pilgrim, although a different tone and style of course. Pure comics joy. For more of a review and preview, check out this review.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

18:29 / 25.05.07

I picked up King City this week, although it's still unread beyond the first couple pages. I really love the sloppy, sensuous line work; it reminds me a bit of Damion Scott. I'll throw out some more thoughts once it's been devoured, processed, and integrated.

23:33 / 25.05.07

King City is definitively my next buy in comics field together with Scott Pilgrim (both have been for a while now), and have a strong suspicion that I'll won't be disappointed in the least by it.

(a spy story in a cool weird city with a fat cat as a high-tech deus ex machina? That should be minimal requirements in every comic book in the world!)

And I'm hearing lots of good things about Escalator. Might get that along with KC.

04:12 / 26.05.07

He'll be doing a signing in NYC (along with artist/writer Becky Cloonan) at Jim Hanley's Universe on June 6, I think it starts at around 6 pm, FYI.

King City actually has a 'fun page' with a crossword puzzle based on terms and things from the book. Crazy!

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

15:44 / 26.05.07

I finished Book 1 in a little coffee shop before work this morning, and I was fairly impressed. Gobble-worthy comix. I occasionally thought his women were a little too similar looking but you could make the argument Joe was obsessing over Anna so much that he imagined the mystery woman looking a bit like her. Very frenetic and sexy lines, sense of movement and bouncy rubberiness. I liked Pete quite a lot and his "Batman costumes of many designs" gallery wall in his apartment. The xombies were fun and the mentioned xombie wars in Korea...I liked its nods to the conceits of the "Weird City Genre" with the futuristic drug Chalk, et cetera. Earthling was key.

Have we heard when Part 2 is out at all? Because I feel rather left in the lurch by that ending and demand to know more!

15:40 / 27.05.07

I think it might be about 6 months' wait for Vol. 2...not sure about that. I know he's about halfway through doing the second book.

After that, he's doing a graphic novel called "Multiple Warhedz" for Oni Press - it's about a werewolf or something like that.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

22:19 / 27.05.07

I really dug King City and look forward to book 2... I'll see if I can track down Escalator. Same drawing style, or does he branch out?

22:59 / 27.05.07

First issue of Multiple Warheadz should be hitting soon. I recall ordering from a recent (one or two months ago?) Previews. But I'd assume a tpb would be forthcoming.
What else has he done? Is anything very difficult (or soon will be) to find?
I managed to get Universe So Big #'1 and 2, did 3 release?

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

01:04 / 28.05.07

I enjoy how King City revels in the icky-gumminess of the cat and the cat's body, his interactions with Joe -- I'm thinking of the "cat periscope" scene at the underground spy bar, how weird the image is but never commented on. I'm trusting that Anna gets more development in the second book apart from her men -- I don't get the vibe that she's a spy, but I can't quite figure out if everybody's supposed to be a spy or something? The Owls also intrigue me.

17:23 / 28.05.07

Universe So Big #3 never saw release - way back when it came out, Radio wasn't making enough money on the series to warrant publishing issue 3, so they said. Maybe someday there will be a paperback of all 3 issues...

Yeah, I get the vibe that Anna's just a regular civilian in King City...not everyone is a spy there; probably just 'most'.

17:23 / 28.05.07

Other than Escalator and some short stories in the Meathaus gang's books, that's about it as far as his work. A few random guest-illustrations/pinups in random indie books.

23:02 / 28.05.07

Thanks FinderWolf!

Regrettable Juvenilia

01:15 / 29.05.07

And the two porn books, Perverts of the Unknown and Pillow Fight.

What, somebody had to say it, it's like the elephant in the room up in here...

Not that I own either of these, but then again, if somebody wanted to give me one - a sexual graphic novel, that is - I wouldn't object, either.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

04:43 / 29.05.07

Perverts of the Unknown? Are you serious? Because if he did something called Perverts of the Unknown, I'm so totally there...

He does talk about his work in porn comix in the backmatter to King City, and how Becky Cloonan convinced him to give it up and do some indie comix work. You can certainly see the porn influence hanging overhead in some places...there's a certain current to the scene between Anna and Max that devolves into ridiculous foreplay, it feels like a reponse to all of that.

O/T (or only tangentially related), but how does Becky Cloonan's stuff rate? I've looked at American Virgin but never bought, and I gather she's got her own TokyoPop stuff going on...I think my mission for this Thursday at the comic shop is to look for more Brandon Graham, some Becky Cloonan, and then to find the rest of the Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. I'm looking to super-charge myself and change my reading habits to pull myself out of this comic funk...

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:21 / 29.05.07

He does talk about his work in porn comix in the backmatter to King City, and how Becky Cloonan convinced him to give it up and do some indie comix work... it feels like a reponse to all of that.

This paragraph reads a little odd to be because I'm pretty sure the pretty sure (can't check at work) that his pornographic work was "indie comix work", too. The stuff I'm aware of was certainly written and drawn by him, so if latter stuff is a response, it's a response to his own material...

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

14:05 / 29.05.07

This paragraph reads a little odd to be because I'm pretty sure the pretty sure (can't check at work) that his pornographic work was "indie comix work", too. The stuff I'm aware of was certainly written and drawn by him, so if latter stuff is a response, it's a response to his own material...

Sorry, was being vague and trying to differentiate the non-porn indie stuff from the porn indie stuff, although the he writes about it in the backmatter does suggest the porn stuff may have been for more of a mainstream pornographic comics publisher (if such a thing exists), as there's a quality of "working for the Man" in his language. Or something.

And I was very much talking about Graham responding to his own work - one can definitely respond to one's own, earlier work by going against its grain or deliberately removing or inverting one's style tics, etc. Obviously I haven't read any of his porn comix but the particular scene I'm thinking of was more playful and intimate, less cleanly sexy and more weirdly amusing then I would generally think of porn comix, but that's my own presumptions speaking. Does that make more sense?

15:19 / 29.05.07

Yep, forgot about the porn stuff he did -- basically, he did it to pay the bills so he didn't have to take a 'day job'. He wasn't like 'oh, I'd rather keep doing porn and Becky had to talk me out of it' -- it was more like 'tiny porn publishers are mostly the only people who will give me work, other than small random jobs and the Meathaus anthologies' (pre-Escalator). Cloonan recommended him to ToykoPop once she'd gotten in with them, to save him from the low-paying and scummy world of porn. He was getting sick of doing the porn (wasn't all that crazy about it to begin with) and just kept finding ways to make it sillier or weirder, to have more fun with it to amuse himself, as I recall...

He was intent on living on ramen noodles to be able to write & draw comics 24/7, if that's what it took. So that's the origin of his porn work. I did read most of his porn stuff, and was always amused that he managed to still make that material fun, goofy, and playful in a way that you don't see in other porn comics. (one short story was a shot of a TV set, with the sex being only conveyed through word balloons of the two people in the room as they had sex/watched TV).

(Perverts of the Unknown is pretty silly stuff, in a good way - something like 'there is a world-threatening menace and it regards something of a sexual nature, so the gov't calls in a team of 5 outrageous, debauchery-specializing sex experts to work together and save the world. Or something. *lol* What I liked about his porn was that it was pretty much all about making fun of the fact that it was porn, more a self-referential intentionally campy B-movie than anything else.)

16:37 / 29.05.07

oh, and NBM published "Perverts" and I'm not sure who did "Pillow Fight." Maybe NBM too...?

03:07 / 24.06.07

The Washington Post has a short interview with Graham:

Here.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

21:49 / 24.06.07

When is Multiple Warheads officially out, anyway? I'm looking forward to it - particularly the living car.

14:42 / 25.06.07

Not sure -- maybe the fall...?

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

22:43 / 02.08.07

Just got a copy of Escalator in the mail today, so I'm in the middle of reading it--fun! It's a mix of different sorts of short-shorts, almost more like stray thoughts than full stories, but there are some little beauties in there. I'm a sucker for creative process discussions, and Graham offers a short biography for each story afterward.

00:45 / 03.08.07

Papers I must assume you know first issue of Multiple Warheads dropped last week.
Was very good, had some keen ideas in it (nevermind nicotine how 'bout caffeine?)
However I am curious about how soon # 2 is out.
Looking forward to King City v.2

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

00:57 / 03.08.07

Damnit!

I checked two different shops on the off-chance the new Casanova was out, but neither one had Multiple Warheadz. Damn. I'll have to investigate getting it ordered in.

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