I’d been following the recent Tokypop developments pretty casually. I thought it was all kind of interesting, but I didn’t have any personal investment in it at all.
Until now. Due to the publisher’s restructuring and general slashing of their titles, it seems we’re not going to be seeing the second volume of Brandon Graham’s King City. This is simply not to be tolerated.
Brandon Graham is one of the most interesting and unique cartoonists to come along in a while, and King City is his most fully realized work. It’s about… Well, it’s about a thief who has a genetically-modified cat. And he’s in a city doing a job, and there’s a mysterious woman, and there’s his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend, and varioius weird factions doing weird stuff.
It kind of defies description, at least in a way that makes any sort of sense. Suffice it to say that you’ve probably never seen anything quite like it, and it’s very, very good.
Anyway. You should go and buy the first volume, even if it means giving money to the horrible tyrant Tokyopop. And you should also investigate Multiple Warheads, the equally cool and weird book he did for the non-tyrant Oni Press.
And then – or perhaps first – you can check out Graham’s livejournal, where he’s begun posting King City volume 2, because apparently Tokyopop will neither publish it nor give him the rights back.
And then you should write your congressman? Or something? I don’t know; I don’t think that sort of thing really works. But hopefully there will either be some development that allows Graham to take King City to another publisher. At the very least, give him some good sales numbers on the books you can buy so someone else gives him a sweet deal.