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Derek Kirk Kim's debut book, "Same Difference and Other Stories," appeared last year as a self-published paperback, and with a small print run and zero name-recognition it flew under most radars. Suddenly, though, Kim has swooped into our airspace, receiving nominations for two of the top honors in comix: Eisner Award nominations for Best Short Story and Name Deserving of Wider Recognition, and a Harvey Award nomination for Best New Talent. The hat trick: Top Shelf will be reprinting the original book next month in a spiffy new edition. Here is your chance to catch...
...Same Difference and Other Stories' by Derek Kirk Kim...
...collection of short works that originally appeared on the Web (and still do, at http://www.lowbright.com/), they run a gamut of styles, from serious short fiction to satire to autobiography. While "Same Difference" has the quality of a young artist looking for his own voice by mimicking others, Kim adds enough smarts and talent to make it all seem fresh. One of the most important ingredients is a frisson of Asian American spice. Born in Korea and raised in the States from the age of eight - Korean Americans call such immigrants "1.5"s - Kim's comix stand virtually alone...
...Kim is wise enough to avoid making race the central theme of his work. Instead he just puts Asian Americans into funny, compelling stories that would typically feature "white" characters. The titular tale, for example, owes far more to Dan Clowes' "Ghostworld" than to Amy Tan's "Joy Luck Club." The longest and best of the book's pieces, "Same Difference" features Simon and Nancy, two dorky twenty-something best friends living in Oakland, California who bicker over pop-culture and local weirdoes. The story follows the two of them as Simon semi-reluctantly drives Nancy to Pacifica in order...
...Among other things, Kim has an impressively varied cartooning style. While "Super Unleaded" gets rendered with a cinematic look that underscores its naturalism, "Oliver Pikk" has a zany, Saturday morning cartoonishness. "Same Difference" deftly combines these two styles, blending a realistic approach with some silly caricature. For a debut, "Same Difference" shows a remarkable level of accomplishment at comicbook craft. Although many web comics transfer badly to the printed page, only a few minor pieces in the book suffer, mostly due to blurry typeface...