Kim & Kim #2

Writer: Magdalene Visaggio
Pencils & Inks: Eva Cabrera
Colors: Claudia Aguirre
Letters: Zakk Saam
Publisher: Black Mask

On the subject of comics that came out two weeks ago but that I hadn't had the time to review: Kim & Kim #2! I liked the first issue of this a lot and I read this as soon as I could (2 weeks ago) but I just hadn't written about it. Magdalene Visaggio tweeted about starting to write the last issue of this a while ago, it's a shame that apparently the creative team is already working on the last few issues. Granted, Black Mask don't really have any long ongoing series at this point (although I think they're doing more We Are Never Going Home and Space Riders, both of which are good books that you should check out) but hopefully the reaction to this prompts them to do more Kim & Kim comics.

Vissagio has a pretty great sense of humour and a very distinctive voice. This book feels like nothing else that I'm reading but I think these characters all speak in a similar way. I hope that changes with time as each character gets more established and differentiated. It's not like the characters blend together because of the distinctive designs by the creative team but they all speak with the same cadences.

That's not to say that the writing is one-dimensional. This issue is mostly about Kim D, she gets a whole arc about her relationship with her family (who are all necromancers bytheway). Her story deals with feelings of inadequacy. She doesn't want anything to do with the family business of necromancy (!) but the story leads her to a point she must use those abilities. In the end, she relies on her friends, Kim Q and Tom (the octopus person) to beat a giant earthworm invoked due to a botched seance. It's not a groundbreaking story but those beats land and it feels like there is real character growth in 20 or so pages.

Speaking of pages, there's 2 of them that are all wide, black panels. This made me dissapointed, it feels a lot like filler. Kim & Kim #2 has 25 pages of story, so even with those two empty pages it is longer than a lot of mainstream floppies. The book still looks great for the most part. Claudia Aguirre's colors are really dope, I also love some of the fonts (mainly the machine gun one) Zakk Saam uses and Eva Cabrera's character acting is on of the most detailed among the comics that I'm reading.

Overall, I had some qualms with this issue but it still had a lot of good things going for it. The world-building is great and the characters are very endearing. More importantly, it is a lot of fun.