Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Single Issue Hall of Fame: Kamandi #16

I recently read through a stack of 20-30 issues of Kamandi. Looking back, it was a lot of fun but seems like a bit of a blur - just a lot of animals shouting at Kamandi. The one issues that truly stands out from the crowd is #16. It is a real departure from the rest of the series as Jack totally changes his approach to the narrative. We're given a detailed account, via the diary entries of a research scientist, of the final moments leading up to the Great Disaster. Sure, this is a high concept narrative technique that has been used a million times, but it really work here and is a nice break from the stream roller narrative that plows though the rest of this series. The story of how animals became intelligent is revealed in subtle and elegant way. This is a fun and kooky series, but this issue allows everyone to catch their collective breaths and look at Kamandi's world from a new perspective. It is a beautiful thing.

1 comment:

Patrick Lemaire said...

I totally agree. That issue stands from the others. The reason the diary narrative works is because of the parallel with the events happening at the same time in the main story. But I really like the rest of the series as well, the two-part story where the morticoccus is unleashed has suspense and a claustrophobic feeling like in Alien six years before Byrne claimed to introduce that kind of storytelling to comics in X-Men 143.