So, what explains the success of these twisted, violent, and awkwardly drawn heroes and villains from the dawn of the comics industry? Karasik chalks it up to “the incredible graphic appeal of the work.” Witness panels showing an army of headless soldiers, each with a single eye at the center of his chest blimp-like, bright red Martian destroyers zooming across the sky in crazy patterns crowds of leopard women standing on the backs of flying reptiles while shooting comet fire from their helmets. I Shall Destroy was also embraced by the literary world, receiving rave reviews in both The Believer and Bookforum. In fact, Karasik remarked that at a MoCCA signing in June, at least a third of those buying the book were women. It turned out he was right and we were wrong: four printings in two years and still going strong.” In a twist that surprised even Karasik, the book was adopted by a much broader reading public than just the “guy nerd comic collectors” he’d expected to buy it.
Said Thompson, “We always thought I Shall Destroy would do at least fairly well, but nowhere near as well as Paul thought it would. Hanks no longer needs an introduction in the comics community, but at the time even Fantagraphics v-p Kim Thompson, who Karasik said, “couldn’t have been more supportive of the project”, had no idea how successful the book would turn out to be. In an interview with PWCW upon the release of the first volume in 2007, editor/collector, Paul Karasik, devoted much energy to explaining who Hanks was and why on earth he’d decided to dig him out of obscurity.
0 kommentar(er)
