Today, Patrick and Michael are discussing Kaptara 2, originally released May 20th, 2015.

Patrick: Fun personal fact about me: I get sorta stressed out writing about some of the more prestige comics that Retcon Punch covers. While something like Saga or Nameless or Velvet might be both excellent and full of meaning, those creators are savvy enough to obscure any absolute reading of their work. The masters know enough to resist reducing their work to an easy slug line. I find the exact same quality to be true of Chip Zdarsky and Kagan McLeod’s Kaptara. Is it a subversion of high fantasy tropes? Or does the naturalistic, jokey approach to storytelling invalidate any comparisons one could draw to the standards of the genre? Issue two hints at commentary on celebrity, politics, gender dynamic, but doesn’t stay with anything long enough to make a point. But it may just be Kaptara’s refusal to make any point that makes it so damn fun. Oh, and the Cat Tanks. Obviously. Continue reading →

Today, Michael and Mark are discussing Kaptara 1, originally released April 22nd, 2015.

Space, why you gotta be like that?

Kaptara 1

Michael: Compared to other genres of fiction, science fiction is still relatively young. Despite this, most science fiction — smart science fiction — relies on the intelligence of its audience in the way that it references and respects the space epics that have come before it. We’ve made similar observations in our write-ups of recent sci-fi books like Saga and Nameless: good science fiction trusts that even if you haven’t seen every Star Wars or Alien film, you will be familiar enough with the situation that they are trying to honor, re-enact or subvert. And when you’re dealing with a comic book produced by an independent publisher like Image, there is more freedom to directly reference these situations and tropes in-story. Such is the beauty of Kaptara. Continue reading →