**Reader BOMC** Infinite Kung Fu - (Kagan McLeod) - SPOILERS INSIDE Thread

mguy1977

The pick is officially announced.

Infinite Kung Fu by writer/artist Kagan McLeod is this month's pick from Top Shelf.

http://www.instocktrades.com/TP/Top-Shelf/INFINITE-KUNG-FU-GN/MAY111197

It sales for $17.46

If you have orders over $50.00 it is free shipping.


The book will be discussed in depth so if you have not read said book it could likely be spoiled for you. Please read the book in question ie Infinite Kung Fu first. Thank you.

Thanks & happy reading.

Matthew

John_Steed

I devoured the book in one go - it lasted one lazy afternoon. I LOVE the book and will re-read it for sure. Everything in and about it is to my liking - the words, the art, the tone, the setting, the subject matter yes even the design and packaging of the book. I simply can't find any flaws.

i give it a neck-breaking ..5/5..

And of course it made me go through my collection of Kung Fu flicks and re-visit the classics.



Btw: there is a great interview/podcast with Kagan McLeod on inkstuds

mguy1977

@John_Steed Thanks John for the link to the podcast, I will listen to it after I read the book.

Matthew

chrisruggia

I only just finished Infinite Kung Fu, and overall I loved it.

I initially saw some of it as a webcomic on Top Shelf 2.0, and coming in at the middle I was turned off by the elaborateness of the quest they were on, sort of like if you've never watched Buffy or Angel but catch a single episode late in one of those series and everything seems just overwrought and absurd.

But I met Kagan at STAPLE in Austin and I found him so pleasant and engaging that I went ahead and bought the book. He did a sweet sketch of Moog Joogular on the flyleaf for me. The man is a marvel with a brush, I'll tell you that.



Starting the story from the beginning, I found that when I reached the parts I had read online I took them completely in stride and had no problems with it.

I had a few quibbles about the way the story structure sprawled and how choppy the plot felt at times, but I readily forgave these things and invented a rationalization that perhaps they were a legacy of the source material. I haven't seen that many kung fu movies, but storytelling finesse doesn't seem to be top priority for a lot of them.

My favorite parts of the story were when he dug into the mode of the Eastern parable, like the sequence in front of the Shaolin Temple when Lei Kung and Li Zhao are trying to make it inside as students.

The artwork, though, is definitely the highlight of this book for me. To say the brushwork is lively would be a severe understatement, and I love the references to calligraphy throughout. The action poses are incredibly inventive, with engaging and expressive distortions to the anatomy. I also really like a lot of the faces, and felt like I saw more than a little of MAD's Jack Davis in the drawing of a lot of them.

Zombies don't do anything for me as a rule, but I really enjoyed Kagan's cosmological explanation for their existence. I was also grateful that the book is not in color. If all that blood had been red ink instead of black I would never have even picked it up!

John_Steed

@chrisruggia : nicely put - and congrats to getting that awesome sketch. Me want.

John_Steed

Pssst! Over here....

Feel free to add your thoughts - yes, YOU!

;;)