All Star Recommends!

Just the one recommendation this week as a few plans fell apart but this is a much requested one. We promise to have a lot more next week. Price listed below is shelf price, standing order customers receive a 10% discount.

I Kill Giants
Writer: Joe Kelly
Artist: JM Ken Niimura
Recommended by: Dom

We all have our giants don’t we? Giants are those toughest of obstacles to beat. In Joe Kelly and JM Ken Niimura’s I Kill Giants, there are many both metaphorically and physically. The question that the stories main character ultimately must face, herself being a Giant killer is how best to confront them.

Adolescence and the imagination are often combined in various mediums of storytelling. There is something special about childhood adventure being made even more fantastic by layering in elements of the unreal. This form of writing also allows the writer to examine concepts of growing up and dealing with larger world issues. Barbara Thorson is a great character because at the beginning of the story, she is a mystery. She is quick witted and strange, the perfect outsider. Her mysteries leave the reader wondering if her fantasies are genuine or the work of her rather active imagination. These questions are driven by the art which layers in the fantastic elements with an almost there quality. It is within the ambiguity of this fantasy/reality idea that the story shines, the reader wants to both believe in and accept Barbara’s world.

I Kill Giants is an entertaining and rather touching adventure through the mind of a very unique girl. The larger issues that come to the forefront later in the book are dealt with in a subtle manner without diluting the narrative. Barbara Thorson in turn becomes the perfect avatar of the adolescent mind learning to deal with reality knocking while still clinging to the fantastic that children like to lose themselves in. 

I Kill Giants is available at All Star Comics now for $21.95. Those with the money to spend may also want to check out the oversized hard cover Titan Edition for $53.95.

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