World War Kaiju by Josh Finney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Artist Patrick McEvoy wields a multitude of visual styles to bring Finney’s revisionist, conspiracy theory laden version of 20th Century politics to life. From the end of WWII, through the Cold War presidents, and into near-modern times, the tale is spun by a CIA whistleblower to a journalist willing to expose the internal battle between the presidency and the intelligence community.
In this history in which WWIII saw the destruction of Washington DC, Maryland, Manhattan and San Francisco, the Americans co-opted German research and Oppenheimer to develop the ultimate weapon nicknamed “Fat Man,” a Kaiju. The Kaiju attack on Tokyo ends WWII but leads to a Cold War after Russia soon develops the Kaiju, too.
Soon the tale broadens beyond allegorical atomic mega-monsters. Pixies present themselves to Eisenhower to warn of the ancient extraterrestrial origin of Kaiju [think Lovecraft] while Martians come to Roswell to propose an economic alliance. Even Carl Sagan makes a psychedelic appearance at this point . . .
I highly recommend this graphic novel. I received my copy of this novel directly from 01 Publishing through bookreviewdirectory.wordpress.com. I’ve previously reviewed this author’s Utopiates, an extremely creative graphic work of near future speculative fiction, and Casefile: ARKHAM, a detective noir delving into a Lovecraftian landscape. The second of these two was also graphically rendered by Patrick McEvoy.
[Check out my other reviews here.]
Jaffalogue 