Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: boom, Comics, entertainment, fiona staples, kelly sue deconnick, kieron gillen, mike carey, scott snyder, si spurrier

Snyder, Carey, Staples, DeConnick, Gillen – And Me – On Six Gun Gorilla

So anyway, there's this comic called Six Gun Gorilla by Si Spurrier and Jeff Stokely that came out from Boom! Studios. And it's being collected. And I've just read through it all with glee.

"Six-Gun Gorilla is one of the most original and daring reads I've come across in a while. Visually stunning in its art and stunningly visionary in its storytelling, it's a book that never forgets to be wildly fun, too." — Scott Snyder.

Snyder, look I was talking here, please, it's rude to interrupt. Okay, what sticks out most about this book to me is how much I thought it was an Image comic when reading it. Boom! have made a point of recruiting Image creators of late and putting out the kind of book you might have expected to have come out at Image, but this is probably where that started at Boom! The title belies what's actually going on in this comic, a kind of cross between The Running Man, Westworld, Starship Troopers and whatever Grant Morrison has been ingesting this week. It is idiosyncratic and surreal, heavy on the science fiction, but recognisably a western for all that.

"Under a dazzling surface, astonishing sci-fi concepts mesh like clockwork. But the payoff is 100% organic and it will floor you."  — Mike Carey

Mike, please, come on, I'm talking here. Basically this is a far odder book than the covers and the title might suggest. It's about fiction, about pulp fiction, about the stories that have been forgotten by most and finding a way to make them real again. Then there's media, reality TV and the way our tastes are changing as to the kinds of stories we enjoy. Then there's the way governments justify and sell war to the populace, what happens when the outsourcing of the military is taken to its logical conclusion. Then there's…

"Six-Gun Gorilla is the best type of comic book insanity – the type where the book is so well-crafted, its talking apes and suicidal TV stars make total sense. Spurrier and Stokely have created a weird and compelling and completely-feeling world that is super fun (and slightly scary) to get stuck in." – Fiona Staples

Come on now Fiona, haven't you got Saga #20 to be drawing? We don't want to wait another three months do we? Where was I? Oh yes, then there's Preacher-style "what does it take to be a man" ruminations, how fiction can bend reality taken literally as if it were a Robert Heinlein novel, and colours that create an alien environment but with the right kinds of reds and oranges that get over the heat of the desert and the spaghetti western atmosphere this books needs. Oh yes, and in the middle is a very large gun toting gorilla.

"Dammit if Spurrier didn't take something that could not possibly be anything other than dumb fun and make it clever and riveting. He does this often. The bastard." – Kelly Sue Deconnick.

And yes, for all that I compare this to an Image book, with its cartoonyness and forced stylised reality, there's the gritty imagination of a 2000AD, where Si Spurrier learnt his comic book craft. For all its weirdness, this is a reality that props itself up, a stylised way of being that makes sense as long as you don't start pulling at the threads. And why would you?

"In Six-Gun Gorilla is an explosion of pulp and joy, but there's more in its twelve metafictional chambers than the imagination and vision of two fine creators working at the top of their game."  – Kieron Gillen.

The trade paperback is out from June 18th. If you're the kind of person who reads Pretty Deadly, Saga, American Vampire, Southern Bastards, Invisibles, East Of West and the like, you might want to add this to the stack. Six issues, you're in and out. Let your shop know… or if they seem disinterested, do the Amazon US and Amazon UK dance.

A collector's item hardback with the Chris Weston cover below will be available from Boom! at San Diego Comic Con and Si may have a copy at the signing he's doing at Forbidden Planet on June 25th…

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