A darkly comic spy story that buzzes like a caffeine high.
In this comic collection set in the cutthroat world of carbonated corporate espionage, a spy and a scientist face off against rival cola kingpins.
The high-pressure world of Big Cola can involve bombings, assassinations, and even global diarrhea outbreaks. These are the tactics of Kaito and Goro Koizumi, formerly conjoined twins who are now bitter rivals battling for complete soda supremacy. Goro, the head of Fizz-One Cola in Osaka, employs the oversexed, square-jawed hitman Jon Pyle to sabotage his sibling’s company, Popso Cola—even if it means murdering a union boss or toppling a Congolese president. However, Kaito, in the high-rise next door, has a secret weapon, and her name is Dina Deluxe. A brilliant, underappreciated scientist, Dina is on the verge of cracking the formula for self-regenerating carbonation, which would keep Popso fizzy longer than any competitor. Jon’s orders are clear: seduce and recruit Dina for Fizz-One—or liquidate her, if need be. Neither Jon nor Dina know that Kaito has bugged her apartment and would rather kill her than let Goro claim the formula. As she’s pursued by a menpō-masked hit squad and a half-burned, knife-wielding enforcer, Dina believes her best hope is to explain to her boss she has no intention of jumping ship. However, her newfound superspy bodyguard knows just how vengeful Koizumi can be, and that it’ll take more than words to survive his wrath. Writer/artist Johnson tackles his first full-length, creator-owned series alongside Painkiller Jane co-creator Palmiotti, crafting a tale of espionage that effectively balances the serious and absurd. The multibillion-dollar companies’ antics mirror real-life acts of corporate manipulation, although the cola-can silencers and booby-trapped six-packs are on the wild side. The villains shine bright here, and Goro and Kaito’s antics are hilarious and horrifying. Jon and Dina have good banter, but a perfunctory romance. Santacruz’s pencils fit the genre perfectly, with a modern, cinematic approach to action scenes and a bit of Howard Chaykin influence apparent in the character designs. The soda logos are standouts—as dynamic and believable as real-world brands.
A darkly comic spy story that buzzes like a caffeine high.Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2025
ISBN: 9781545817872
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A Rand primer with pictures.
A graphic novel for devotees of Ayn Rand.
With its men who have become gods through rugged individualism, the fiction of Ayn Rand has consistently had something of a comic strip spirit to it. So the mating of Rand and graphic narrative would seem to be long overdue, with her 1938 novella better suited to a quick read than later, more popular work such as The Fountainhead (1943) and the epic Atlas Shrugged (1957). As Anthem shows, well before the Cold War (or even World War II), Rand was railing against the evils of any sort of collectivism and the stifling of individualism, warning that this represented a return to the Dark Ages. Here, her allegory hammers the point home. It takes place in the indeterminate future, a period after “the Great Rebirth” marked an end of “the Unmentionable Times.” Now people have numbers as names and speak of themselves as “we,” with no concept of “I.” The hero, drawn to stereotypical, flowing-maned effect by illustrator Staton, knows himself as Equality 7-2521 and knows that “it is evil to be superior.” A street sweeper, he stumbles upon the entrance to a tunnel, where he discovers evidence of scientific advancement, from a time when “men knew secrets that we have lost.” He inevitably finds a nubile mate. He calls her “the Golden One.” She calls him “the Unconquered.” Their love, of course, is forbidden, and not just because she is 17. After his attempt to play Prometheus, bringing light to a society that prefers the dark, the two escape to the “uncharted forest,” where they are Adam and Eve. “I have my mind. I shall live my own truth,” he proclaims, having belatedly discovered the first-person singular. The straightforward script penned by Santino betrays no hint of tongue-in-cheek irony.
A Rand primer with pictures.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-451-23217-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: NAL/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2010
Immensely enjoyable.
The debut graphic novel from Mohamed presents a modern Egypt full of magical realism where wishes have been industrialized and heavily regulated.
The story opens with a televised public service announcement from the General Committee of Wish Supervision and Licensing about the dangers of “third-class wishes”—wishes that come in soda cans and tend to backfire on wishers who aren’t specific enough (like a wish to lose weight resulting in limbs falling from the wisher’s body). Thus begins a brilliant play among magic, the mundane, and bureaucracy that centers around a newsstand kiosk where a devout Muslim is trying to unload the three “first-class wishes” (contained in elegant glass bottles and properly licensed by the government) that have come into his possession, since he believes his religion forbids him to use them. As he gradually unloads the first-class wishes on a poor, regretful widow (who then runs afoul of authorities determined to manipulate her out of her valuable commodity) and a university student who seeks a possibly magical solution to their mental health crisis (but struggles with whether a wish to always be happy might have unintended consequences), interstitials give infographic histories of wishes, showing how the Western wish-industrial complex has exploited the countries where wishes are mined (largely in the Middle East). The book is exceptionally imaginative while also being wonderfully grounded in touching human relationships, existential quandaries, and familiar geopolitical and socio-economic dynamics. Mohamed’s art balances perfectly between cartoon and realism, powerfully conveying emotions, and her strong, clean lines gorgeously depict everything from an anguished face to an ornate bottle. Charts and graphs nicely break up the reading experience while also concisely building this larger world of everyday wishes. Mohamed has a great sense of humor, which comes out in footnotes and casual asides throughout.
Immensely enjoyable.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-524-74841-8
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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