I've got way behind with Paul Grist's excellent crime comic Kane so the other day I read The Untouchable Rico Costas and Other Short Stories. Great fun. Continues the story of disgraced cop Kane as he attempts to bring down crime boss Oscar Daarke. The dramatic main story is nicely balanced out with some silly jokes and parodies of wellknown comics characters and Grist's B&W artwork is as delightful as ever. At first glance the cartoony art looks pretty crude, as though the Wallace and Gromit team have tried aping Sin City, but that just helps bridge the gap between the gags and the drama. One minute you're laughing but the next minute you really care whether Kane and his partners are going to get screwed over by an Internal Affairs investigation.
Well worth a look.
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British Fantasy Award-winning Author. "Stuart Young not only writes stories, he gives them life." -- TIM LEBBON
"Stuart Young deftly weaves a chilling, atmospheric tale, packed with sharp, biting prose, haunting imagery, and healthy doses of paranoia and wry humor. Emotional, brilliant and scary as hell." - BRIAN KEENE
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"No one can accuse Stuart Young of avoiding the big issues - with insight and verve, he tackles head-on the existence of God, the mystery of human consciousness and the transformative effects of psychedelic drugs. Recommended." - MARK CHADBOURN
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About Me
- Stuart Young
- Author of three short story collections -- Spare Parts, Shards of Dreams, and The Mask Behind the Face. Winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Novella.
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7 comments:
Ah, Kane. Kane was a great book, if a bit decompressed. Grist's artwork is perfect, and it proved to me more than anything else that a photorealistic style is not necessary.
I only wish Grist had finished the thing. It took a lot of work to track down the monthlies, only to be thanked for it by a story that will never be done.
I was quite into Kane at the time, and started a website that was to connect all the dots (vestiges may still live on the internet, somewhere) before I gave up. I'm also one of the few who ponied up for an official Kane poster, lovingly signed by Grist. It came with a short note to me written on a postcard, where he told me to follow my comicbook dreams and see what happens. And look where it got me!
... waitaminnit ...
Simon, is Grist not going to finish Kane? I thought this was the case when he started Jack Staff but I recently realised there had been two more trade paperbacks since I stopped reading the book so I hoped he was going to finish Kane after all. Of course, since I only ever read the trades I'm not sure when the stories in the latest trades were originally published.
It'll be a crying shame if Grist has ditched Kane in favour of Jack Staff. I read the first couple of trades of JS and they just weren't in the same league as Kane.
As far as I know, KANE only ran 31 issues. If your latest collections collect something past 31, then there's more work out there of which I'm unfamiliar, but a quick Google search reveals nothing (though one website, updated this year, still only has up to 31 listed).
It IS a damn shame, you're right on the money there. Another awful tragedy is what happened to STRAY BULLETS, which seemed to have a definite end planned, and has since slipped away. Lapham may return to that, though. He's come back in the past. He just finished a hardcover book for DC/Vertigo called "Silverfish" which promises to be another crime-noir book. I'm hoping that book was the reason he spent so long away from SB, and hoping he'll go back to it now.
If not, it will just be another in a long line of series that ended too soon. Did you ever read Angus McKie's BLUE LILY? That was a f'n masterpiece — an existential sci-fi noir. The mini-series was cancelled halfway through. Sigh ...
I've not bought the latest Kane trade yet but it looks like it only goes up to 31 :-(
Been pretty sporadic in my reading of Stray Bullets. Just picked up cheap back issues here and there. And I still haven't got round to reading my copy of Murder Me Dead yet.
Not heard of Blue Lily.
I'm not surprise you never heard of BLU LILY ... only two issues were made. Two beautiful issues ... Damn you Dark Horse!
It's been so long since I've read Kane that I can't remember if 31 was a proper ending or not. It didn't feel that way at the time.
Reread Bendis's Goldfish recently and was disappointed to find it wasn't anywhere near as good as I remembered. Have to reread Jinx at some point and see if that still stands up.
Oh, and before I forget did you ever read Steven Grant's Damned?
Oh, yeah. Loved DAMNED.
I read Bendis's TORSO on a strong recommendation and was quite bored by it. I'm sure Fincher will make a good movie out of it, though ... if he stays on to do it.
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