Comic Review: Wonton Soup

    A couple years ago, I read James Stokoe’s awesome “Godzilla: Half-Century War” and knew that here was a comic artist/writer to watch. A lot of comic artists think they can write and are totally wrong, so it’s nice to see one who actually can. With “Wonton Soup” Stokoe lets his imagination and bent sense of humor off the chain. Someone called it a mix of “Iron Chef” and John Carpenter’s “Dark Star.” OK. I’ll give him that. But I also see a lot of the kinda cruel humor of “Lexx,” too.

    The story is about a couple of space truckers, one a prodigy chef who’s left school to taste life, the other a spaced out sex fiend losing himself in narcotics and anyone (or thing) that’s willing. They go around getting into trouble, eating and smoking whatever they can get their hands on. It’s stoner comedy, with meta references and a wild sense of fun (tinged with some bitterness).  The art is surprisingly vibrant for black & white, with Stokoe’s usual sense of strange.

    My only complaint about the book is that it’s sort of food porn, but the food is all Dr. Seuss nonsense.  I mean, it makes sense in the context of the story, but part of me kept wanting the cooking scenes and food parts to be more serious and real. Probably a completely unfair expectation, but I couldn’t help it. I found the sometimes extensive food porn parts less exciting because I couldn’t sample anything or use any of the techniques myself. Silly, huh?

    Years ago, I worked with an artist to write a short comic called “ProxyFight.” We worked long and hard on the six pages. Both of us were fans of “Lexx” and other weird science fiction films, TV shows, and books. Reading “Wonton Soup” made me so nostalgic for my time working on “ProxyFight” and all the other stuff the artist and I had planned to follow up that short with. Alas, that never happened, but I still have those memories.  By far the best collaborative experience I’ve had. It made reading "Wonton Soup" oddly personal.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Comic Review: Godzilla The Half-Century war

    Godzilla, like many long running franchises (James Bond, Star Trek, Doctor Who, etc.) has been many things over the years.  It started as an atomic allegory with strong post-Hiroshima/Nagasaki imagery.  It evolved into an environmental message series, aimed primarily at the young.  And it came back (twice) as slightly more serious, less intellectual, bad-science fiction, typical of contemporary, post-anime Japanese film.  Along the way, it has featured comedy, adventure, mystery, conspiracy, and occasionally horror.  The best films use Godzilla and the other monsters as forces of nature…natural disasters.  The best of the films feature compelling and interesting people trying to survive and understand as the world is torn down around them.  And with Godzilla: The Half-Century War James Stokoe has extracted some of the best of the films to create a five chapter, five decade epic of one man’s life in the shadow of the beast.

    Starting with its first appearance in the 50s, our hero Ota and his spaced out friend Ken are on the front line of history.  After proving their metal in the burning hell of Tokyo, they’re recruited for a special group gathered to study and stop Godzilla.  During the Vietnam War, things escalate when it is discovered that Godzilla isn’t so unique, and there might be people working behind the scenes with ulterior motives.  From there the story takes us to Africa, then Bombay, and finally to Antarctica, as the world is hammered down into burning rubble by the chaotic battling of kaiju.  Stokoe manages to work in many series favorites, even some of the weirder, lamer new monsters, while weaving the sad life’s story of a man trying to understand the wild thing he has spent his life fighting.

    Several especially effective moments stand out, particularly in the turning point story set in Ghana.  Here, as so many monsters come together and lay waste to a city, Ota is irrevocably changed.  The scenes of him sitting in the blasted building, watching the carnage, are quite striking.  And the sequence in the VW bus just the right dash of comic relief, which feels like something right out of one of those 70s films.  And Stokoe’s art manages to be extremely busy, yet evocative.  The colors are beautiful and the action very well done.

    For any Godzilla/Kaiju fan, this book is an absolute must.  It gives the genre the respect it deserves, tells a good story, and I think lives up to the potential of the ideas.  In many ways, this is to the Godzilla series what Marvels by Busiek and Ross was to the Marvel Universe.  And like Marvels, you don’t need to be a fan to appreciate it, but if you are a fan, I think it will be especially affecting.

Godzilla: The Half-Century War
Author/Artist: James Stokoe
Publisher: IDW
ISBN: 978-1613775950

-Matt