Rumble Royale is a studio jam book, an anthology put together by the Royal Academy of Illustration and Design featuring four original concepts and one story from the existing concept Infinite Kung Fu. I picked this one up in San Diego earlier this year, but it's just become available in the direct market, and it's well worth a look. The stories aren't really deep, but they're a lot of fun, and the artwork throughout is just gorgeous. Other than Cameron Stewart, none of the creators here are probably familiar names to the comics mainstream, but they're all very talented folks with impressive resumes, and I expect that they all will be doing as much comics work as they choose to, because the talent level is obviously there.
There's not a story in this compilation that is disappointing from an art standpoint. Kagan McLeod's Infinite Kung Fu is beautiful in full color, but he works very well in the gray wash technique here as well, and does an excellent job of capturing the kinetic flow of the martial arts moves or the more disgusting aspects of the living dead. Chip Zdarsky's cuddly versions of classic monsters sets the tone of "Monster Cops" perfectly, and brings the humor of the piece right to the forefront immediately. Ben Shannon's work also stands out, most noticeably for the Zip-a-Tone style effects that he uses on the piece. And Samuel Hiti's work reminds me in all the good ways of the work of Scott Morse.
While the art is outstanding, the stories have a tendency to feel a bit light. This is very much a sampler, as opposed to a series of complete tales. McLeod's Infinite Kung Fu tale suffers a bit from too many characters and ideas, as the cooking element of the story doesn't really jibe with the secret kung fu and the story of students and masters... it's all a bit much to work in to one story. It's an interesting read, and has a fine ending, but it lacked a strong central plot. "Monster Cops" is a gimmick premise, and as such is probably the second strongest story in the book, full of well-timed humor and clever homages to the TV cop formula that Zdarsky is obviously riffing on in this story.
The remaining two stories both fall into the "Twilight Zone" type category, a story predicated on a sense of uneasy horror and a shock ending. Shannon's "Doppelganger" is probably stronger, as it's got a pretty good classic shock ending, even if, like McLeod, he doesn't really have enough room to fully introduce his world in the pages of this story. Hiti's "Thirsty Are the Damned" just struck me as kind of weird and surreal. It's got great mood, but I confess that by the time I got to the end, I wasn't really sure if I'd gotten the story, or if the point was that it was sort of a weird non sequitur.
My favorite story in this book actually comes from Ray Fawkes and Cameron Stewart, not just because I've become such a huge fan of his artwork but because it's a pure fun concept. Sort of a post-apocalyptic Josie & The Pussycats, "Apocalipstix" is a story about a three girl band traveling the post-war landscape scrounging for fuel, food and gigs. Stewart has fun with the standard gags, like cannibalistic mutants, as well as introducing three very entertaining characters. My favorite was Meg, cursed with the ability to understand the inescapably cute and equally dumb Dot but only able to respond in Japanese or Chinese. Stewart's designs are terrific as well, sort of the hip and sexy version of post-apocalypse chic for the girls and creepy (but funny) looks for the mutants.
