Boy, this one almost slipped through my fingers and my pull list. Seems like it got zero press, zero previews and zero hype from comic book hype machines. Can’t figure out why not, this creative team is the same one that was behind the mind blowingly amazing ‘The Many Deaths of Laila Starr’ which dropped a few years ago. That was legitimately one of the best series of the year and one of the most unique stories I had read in quite some time. It vaulted Ram V into the ‘writer of the moment’ conversation and predictably he was given a bunch of high profile DC books to lord over.
As I cringed and anticipated a massive failure from his transition into major hero books Ram shut me the hell up and put out an eye poppingly great Aquaman masterpiece with Christian Ward entitled ‘Aquaman:Andromeda’. Aquaman. He knocked an Aquaman story out of the park. The exit velo was off the charts. My goodness, that book was a triumph. I then followed Ram a Dalai Lama Ding Dong down the DC Doo Doo trail into their cheap $3.99 books and predictably he wasn’t able to transcend the titles he was assigned to. I’m completely baffled by this. It keeps me up at night.
Why do creators crash and burn on the $3.99 Big Poo titles? I mean, it doesn’t actually keep me up at night. Maybe when I feel my little Princess staring deep into my soul at 4am which causes me to wake up and lift the covers so she can burrow herself underneath them, maybe then, as I tossing and turning to go back to bed I may think ‘why did Ram V’s Detective Comics run feel like a cheese grater against my nuts?’
So as this team got back together to drop this series I’m wondering why wasn’t this trumpeted from the roof tops? My initial thought was, oh this looks bad. The logline and solicit made it seem like it was some sort of cannibalistic horror comic that followed around some fatso who, I dunno, ate something fancy and then ate someone fancy. I pulled it nonchalantly, it is Boom! after all. Boom! Which is kinda like “Boom! You bought another wack ass comic from us!” Granted, they have been getting better. A Vicious Circle is one of the best books I read this past year even if it is taking them six months or more to put out an issue.
Why didn’t Boom! go all in on this book? I did see them put out some $3 preview book or something called an “Ashcan” a month before which seemed superfluous. What’s an ashcan? Isn’t it supposed to be some mini comic yet it’s not it’s normal sized but it only has 10 pages of material. Huh? Maybe this was Boom! going all in on the creative team. Maybe it’s just that something spectacular these days is easily swept under the rug of the Big Poo’s major releases and incessant drama. The only thing we can do is stay vigilant and pore over the weekly solicits with a fine tooth comb to make sure that great books do not in fact fall through the cracks but get snatched up mightily by the geeks at large so that publisher’s realized that greatness will in fact be rewarded by the marketplace.
And, yes, this book is fucking great.
It’s so obvious right out the gate too. You’re just swept up right into this world by Ram V’s supple word combinations and Filipe Andrade’s distinct and visually satisfying artistic style. They’re building off their Laila Starr premise by introducing another Deity/Demon who adopts a human form to fulfill an ambition of theirs. This particular demon is called a ‘Rakshasa’, which sounds like Shakshuka, a yummy Middle Eastern breakfast dish.
Has a punk
band adopted the name ‘Shakshuka’ yet? C’mon punkos, it’s perfect. The
alternative spelling of Shakshuka is Chakchouka which you know has to be the
name of new Star Wars character that Marvisney plans to introduce in their next
Disney Minus series. Maybe he’ll be an Ewok Warlord, I can see that. Bring back the Ewoks! C'mon Marvisney, you haven't ruined that memory yet, time to make a clean sweep of all my Star Wars happiness and turn it into misery.
At any a rate, a Rakshasha is a demon/ shapeshifter that can take the form of an animal or human if it’s a male. If it’s a female Rakshasha it can only take the form of a beautiful woman. Clearly female Rakshasha’s think it’s a hoot to upload dating profiles to all the dating apps. I think I just matched with a female Rakshasha. She’ll take three weeks to reply in 10 words or less to my well thought out, audience tested, flip yet emotionally mature audio message. I’ll sit patiently and anxiously for a day biting my fingernails, waiting for the moment to reply so as to appear busy and preoccupied with my full work and dating schedule; all for naught. Damn, these fucking Rakshasha’s got me all twisted! At least now, thanks to Ram V, I know that they’re actual demons, and Hindu ones at that. Yeah. Indian babes have always looked at me like I’m a plate of food that just fallen on the floor. I have zero chance with them so this Rakshasha demon horde infiltrating my dating app preference makes total sense.
Back to this spectacular comic. This particular demon has a dream to become an Anthony Bourdain type celebrity and enlists some wayward musty filmmaker dude to shoot the documentary of his journey into food. Obviously some blood and guts occurs but it is downplayed enough that it doesn’t turn the book into a gore fest which is what I was expecting when I saw the solicits. This is just another magical premise by this creative duo and I hope that Boom! or whomever signs them to a long term deal to continue pumping out stories like this for the near future.
We can’t let books like this slip away into the comic book memory holes. We have to support them. We have to make sure the marketplace takes notice when real dyed in the wool artists come together to put out their special brand of special. Is this going to be made into a show or a film, of course it won’t. Will it smash records on social media shares, of course it won’t. It’s a story that’s perfectly made for the medium of comics and it should be celebrated as such. Boom! You did good! Pow! Right in the Kisser Ralph Kramden Good!
Rare Flavours: An under the radar smash from an Indy Publisher. Rare indeed.
Rating: 9.7
Verdict: Pull
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