Kingdom of The Wicked #4

1997 | Calibur Comics

Writing: Ian Edginton
Art: D’israeli
Letters: Woodrow Phoenix

Chris has a vestigial twin inside his body, a tiny little fetus and we ask ourselves how could this get any better? The answers to all our questions residing in that tiny, evil little parasite attached to his brain slowly killing him.

And while Chris aged and moved on, that tiny little devil remained to wreak havoc on the world all for the chance to live a life he was never able to.

The tale is finally closed and one brother the victor. It is a good closure, but the desire to see more of the afters still lingers within me. Such a haunting tale so beautifully chilling.

There’s no pity in that cold black eye. Just hungry fingers burrowing deep—relentless, thirsty roots raiding the cerebrum like a larder, gorging on blood and experience.

I am still stunned from all this. This issue is the best of them all. We see the brother’s anger and determination to not only survive, but to live a normal life of his own rather than a voyeur. We see him withdraw into Castrovalva, the only place he could live any sort of life, and all that bitterness. God, this is excellence.

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Kingdom of The Wicked #3

1997 | Calibur Comics

Writing: Ian Edginton
Art: D’israeli
Letters: Woodrow Phoenix

Chris, after his car accident, is rushed to the hospital, but his mind is elsewhere in Castrovalva torn between ideas of his death and simply being alive, trapped in his imagination.

He meets another old friend of his, Captain Flashheart, now a Colonel who tells more war stories of the horrors that have fallen the world., but the reunion is short-lived and the war claims another soul. He’s off to find the Dictator and set things right.

We also find out something very chilling, revealed in an X-ray. The panel sent cold shivers down my spine-shivers of clarity as countless questions are answered with just two simple  words… and I am totally floored.

By all that is wonderful in this world, I am in love with Ian Edginton’s words and in one more issue, they will be nothing more than a memory. His words don’t get better than this. The way he writes Chris’s attempts to rationalize what’s going on, why all of it is happening is simply brilliant. His observations, and emotions so perfectly fused with D’israeli’s art. It’s a match made in heaven.

They’ve grown, evolved as characters. No longer ink on a page, but flesh and blood, and they’re dying because of me.

Stunning. I am speechless.

Kingdom of The Wicked #2

1996 | Calibur Comics

Writing: Ian Edginton
Art: D’israeli
Letters: Woodrow Phoenix

What a wonderfully disturbing cover. It’s such a great reminder that this is one dark fairytale we’re caught up in.

This issue begins with Chris seeing a doctor and serves as means to give us the story behind his childhood illness and how he began writing. Later, when he falls asleep in front of the tellie, he finds himself back in Castrovalva soon being chased by a Mugwomp. He also finds time to really think about what’s happening to his world, theories that make more sense than the words of his doctor.

After escaping the Mugwomp, he finds a newspaper with the image of the Dictator who looks surprisingly familiar. He wakes from his travels and will soon return after an accident that leaves us with quite a cliffhanger and a major question.

This series gets better-and-better. I tore through this issue so quickly and can’t wait for more. The writing is still so wonderful and the story is progressing quite well in way I have confidence will lead to a very good, conclusive ending. Everything that has been happening in this book has a reason. There’s no filler that graces the pages of other comics wishing to extend their life and profits by as much as possible. For that, I love this. Ian Edginton is a candidate for my greatest loved writers. Hopefully by the end of this  series, he’ll make the cut.

As for the art, the designs for the Mugwomp and those strange creatures on the cover that beg Chris for food are so wonderfully eerie, I just love it. Everything about the art screams creepy children’s book.

This should be in everyone’s collection.

I’m going to be lunch for a character I made when I was seven.”

Kingdom of The Wicked #1

1996 | Calibur Comics

Writing: Ian Edginton
Art: D’Israeli
Letters: Woodrow Phoenix

Chris is a successful author of children’s books and highly praised. He’s currently been working on a sequel to Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alive’ Novels. He’s also been suffering terrible head aches. But something odd happens to Chris when he finds himself waking up in a warzone and rescued by soldiers resembling teddy bears.

What we have here is the beginnings of a fairytale gone wrong after years of neglect. The happy times were stripped away replaced with murder, war, and tyranny. It’s a story desperate to be read and it drew me in rather quickly with it’s wonderful writing and the art. It has this surreal quality I really like that lends itself really well to the dark children’s book feel. There’s several accents here and you can really hear them as you’re reading through the dialogue and each panel has a perfect image set to the text.

Wonderful and magical. This issue really evoked emotion in me, I literally teared up at one point, so moved by the scene. I found myself looking back to my childhood and identifying with the joy the characters felt. I can’t get enough of this. This has clearly upstaged everything else I’ve reviewed to date. This issue has left me with so many questions and quite a bit of remorse. As we grow into adults, we forget a lot of things in our childhood, all that magic and imagination that we lived for starts growing dull and fading away.

…I saw things, things I haven’t seen since I was a boy. I grew up. I forgot them but they’re still there and they’re dying. I left them behind… God…

What happens when you remember, when you can see it all again and it’s not the same as you left? This issue answers all these questions and it’s very thought provoking. I can’t help looking past that to try and remember some of the games and stories I played with my toys and what might have happened when I abandoned them. Some of them I don’t even have anymore, abandoned. I can’t help but feel a little sadness for them. By the end of this issue, I was in tears.

So much drama both on the page and off. It’s only a four-issue series, so go get your hands on it. I highly recommend it.