the giants have been slain

Over my lengthy (and by that I mean two week) stay in Italy, Italia as the natives may or may not call it, I got a bit of reading done. Well okay, maybe not a lot, but sizeable amount. I Kill Giants, The Umbrella Academy, Paul Jenkin’s Inhumans; all titles that I was able to tear through during my stint overseas. All fantastic little books, but I’m here today to talk about one in particular. That my friends, woul be I Kill Giants

I’ve been talking this book up for awhile, claimed it to be the Accidental Book Club book, a statement which isn’t entirely without merit. Hopefully, you’ve read, and you’re happy that you did. Hopefully, we might be able to get some lively conversation going on about this fine piece literature. But if you haven’t this article might help convince you of its awesomeness. If I’m lucky.

I think Ron Richards from iFanboy said it best. It was along the lines of “I Kill Giants is a comic book you give people to show them that comics can be really mature and developed stories”. It was something like that. And I just made IKG sound like a teenage girl. Anyways, I Kill Giants is a story about a girl, Barbara Thorson, who believes she is actually a slayer of giants. The real drive of the story is whether what she believes to be true actually is, or if there’s some deeper issue going on, specifically relating to her home life. Throughout the story, we’re lead through Barbara’s life, what happens at school and in her off time. All and all, we, the reader, get to watch Barbara grow up.

Joe Kelly, the book’s author, does a great job leading us a long through Ms. Thorson's hardships. Cause you have to understand, Barbara leads a difficult life. If you’ve grown up as “different”, it’s a story you can probably relate to. The girl who believes in giants, so everyone picks on her. You were the kid who came to school with his dragon dice everyday, you know what it feels like. Kelly also does an excellent job keeping the nature of the giants pretty ambiguous up until the end of the story. I’m not gonna lie, I’m still a little confused about the giants, but I’m sure that’s how its meant to be. I shouldn’t know.

And let us not forget the art work of JM Ken Nimura. Before I Kill Giants, I was not at all familiar with Nimura. However, I don’t think many of us were, unless you’re just really cool. Nimura drew the book in manga style, which was an interesting choice. It certainly worked for the book, but it was kind of out of the ordinary. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it; it was just unexpected, despite seeing numerous preview pages. I don’t really think I could imagine the book being told any other way though. Overall, the art confused me, but I enjoyed it.

I Kill Giants was an amazing book, and I would absolutely suggest it to anyone and everyone. I can honestly say I was sad by the end of this book. You may not think that may be a good thing, but I’d say that the fact a comic book can have that sort of emotional power, is an amazing thing. Anyone who doubts the validity of comics as a literary medium should truly read this book. And it for this reason that I give I Kill Giants the Weekly Accident stamp of approval.