HIP FLASK: UNNATURAL SELECTION
(Best of the Week!)
Highly Recommended (10/10)
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Writers: Richard Starkings, Joe Casey & Ladronn
Artist: Ladronn
Letters: Richard Starkings
Price: $2.99 US |
A hippopatamus that walks like a man. Wears a trenchcoat and fedora. Works as a private eye. Certainly sounds like a fun concept, so I pre-ordered this book, looking forward to some laughs. Upon reading it, though, I found something very different. This is not the humor book is appears to be on the surface. Instead, it's a dark, mature and chilling story about science and greed run amok, brought to life through the stunning artwork of Ladronn.
More than 200 years in the future, somewhere remote in northern Africa, a hateful little man but talented intellect named Nikken sculpts energy and organic material, patiently awaiting the day he makes a breakthrough... a breakthrough that will make him a rich and powerful man. Through education, manipulation and training, he creates an army of creatures dedicated to him, his corporation and the destruction of mankind.
If you loved Ladronn's amazing artwork on the opening of Marvel's four-part Inhumans limited series, forget about it. It's nothing compared to this achievement. The Jack Kirby and Barry Windsor-Smith influences in his work are apparent immediately, but so is the fact that Ladronn has taken what he learned from those artists and done something more. Nikken is presented as visually inhuman right off the bat, as he quickly proves himself to be in the script. The colors add an eerie glow to the opening scenes. The lab itself boasts a creepy organic look as well. Ladronn conveys the power and majesty of Nikken's creations with seeming ease. Fans of a more European approach to comic art -- like what one sees in books like Heavy Metal and those from Humanoids Publishing -- that one doesn't see all that often in North America comics will want to take a look at this one-shot.
Though this book delivers on its promise to tell the origin of Hip Flask, the title character isn't a prominent player in this opening drama. In fact, there's a lot more to tell, and the creators have done an excellent job of whetting my appetite. Casey's dialogue is surprisingly cold, gets under the reader's skin easily, making for a chilling but engrossing read.
When one hears debates about the ethics of cloning or genetic manipulation, the arguments tend to focus on the morality of the act itself. I'm more interested in the morality that Starkings, Casey and Ladronn explore here, though. Nikken sees himself as a god, and therein lies the undoing of his creations. Nikken isn't a god, but a parent... at least, he should be. He shirks that responsibility -- it never occurs to him. Ultimately, this one-shot is about the tragedy that arises when one forgets and rejects one's inherent responsibility to other life.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think a book called Hip Flask would direct me to such interesting and challenging trains of thought.
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