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Towerkind
Towerkind is an oblique end-of-the-world story seen through the eyes of a diverse group of children in Toronto's St James Town, a neighbourhood of densely populated high rise apartments. The kids in this "towerhood" become aware of an impending catastrophe through a number of supernatural abilities. Among other characters super strong Ty is a self-proclaimed monarch, Mackenzie uses her death magic to meddle, and language savant Mose would prefer to be left alone. Something is revealing itself through cracks and crevices, and through the children in the neighbourhood. Birds are falling from the sky. Originally done as a series of minis that was nominated for an Ignatz Award, Towerkind is a true page-turner.
164 pages, Paperback
First published April 8, 2015
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35 people want to read
About the author
Kat Verhoeven
9 books10 followersKat Verhoeven is an illustrator and mini-comic maker from Toronto.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
June 15, 2015
I really wish I liked this book more than I did. Towerkind is the story of a group of children who all live in the dense district of St James in Toronto. Though the introduction spoke a lot about the importance of place in this volume, I found that the spare art and confined panelling did not give me much of a sense of place. This is unfortunate as I think a better sense of the environment would have added much to the narrative. I do have to commend Verhoeven, though, on ensuring that her cast reflected the diversity of the area. It was great to see so many different cultures and languages portrayed as just part of everyday life.
The story itself is an interesting one. The children develop paranormal powers in the face of an impending disaster. Unfortunately, none of the children feel particularly developed, nor do their powers. It was hard to figure out exactly what was going on at times as the story-telling was very compressed. Had Verhoeven paced things a bit more slowly, lengthening the book, readers would have had more of a chance to understand what was going on, and to feel the strange, unsettling fear that the children in this book obviously did.
Overall, Towerkind has a very neat concept, but it needs a lot of fleshing out to really shine. I will be watching Kat Verhoeven in the future as her art reminds me a lot of Faith Erin Hicks (another Canadian favourite), and she's obviously very creative, but I will mourn for what Towerkind could be with a bit more elbow grease.
The story itself is an interesting one. The children develop paranormal powers in the face of an impending disaster. Unfortunately, none of the children feel particularly developed, nor do their powers. It was hard to figure out exactly what was going on at times as the story-telling was very compressed. Had Verhoeven paced things a bit more slowly, lengthening the book, readers would have had more of a chance to understand what was going on, and to feel the strange, unsettling fear that the children in this book obviously did.
Overall, Towerkind has a very neat concept, but it needs a lot of fleshing out to really shine. I will be watching Kat Verhoeven in the future as her art reminds me a lot of Faith Erin Hicks (another Canadian favourite), and she's obviously very creative, but I will mourn for what Towerkind could be with a bit more elbow grease.
October 4, 2023
Vague spoilers ahead:
Because of the reviews I went into this with very low expectations, and maybe that helped because I quite enjoyed this! Obviously the Toronto setting already sets me up to like it, and I've got a lot of love for St. James Town and that insane, crowded collection of towers. Those people have been dealt a lot of shit - by the government, by other Torontonians, by life circumstances - and there's still just so much life and community and awesome independent markets in defiance of it all. I think the diversity of the people was very well captured here, as was the not so wonderful condition of some of the buildings themselves. So many languages. I love that it wasn't translated on page and if you want to know you have to take a minute and translate yourself. That's what many recent immigrants and refugees to the city do all damn day; the reader should live that experience.
I will say that it was chaotic and took a bit of getting used to following certain characters and then abruptly switching to different ones and then back again. It still had a solid narrative though, and it again echoed the often chaotic world of a young child living in St. James Town, sometimes without any adult available and your neighbours becoming your family - sometimes for the better, sometimes the worse.
I really enjoyed the different powers the kids developed. One of them was kind of messed up (which is good, in my books) and most were weird (which is even better). The art was very simplistic but still pretty effective. It showed very good expression and I was able to recognize certain locations (you know I lost it when I saw the distinct outline of the Viaduct, I've spent HOURS under there).
The ending did have more "closure" than the reviews initially led me to believe, but it was still very open ended and I wanted more information about this event - why it's happening, how large a scale, will it end, is help coming? But the kids don't know any of this either, and we're living through their lives. So it also felt appropriate.
This book is a snapshot of a community before disaster strikes. It's messy and confusing and so much is out of their control, but at the end they're together and cautiously united and safe for now and that's the most they can hope for. I think (sans the supernatural elements obviously) a lot of people in Toronto are living through a version of that terrifying, fragile reality and that theme will resonate with them.
Because of the reviews I went into this with very low expectations, and maybe that helped because I quite enjoyed this! Obviously the Toronto setting already sets me up to like it, and I've got a lot of love for St. James Town and that insane, crowded collection of towers. Those people have been dealt a lot of shit - by the government, by other Torontonians, by life circumstances - and there's still just so much life and community and awesome independent markets in defiance of it all. I think the diversity of the people was very well captured here, as was the not so wonderful condition of some of the buildings themselves. So many languages. I love that it wasn't translated on page and if you want to know you have to take a minute and translate yourself. That's what many recent immigrants and refugees to the city do all damn day; the reader should live that experience.
I will say that it was chaotic and took a bit of getting used to following certain characters and then abruptly switching to different ones and then back again. It still had a solid narrative though, and it again echoed the often chaotic world of a young child living in St. James Town, sometimes without any adult available and your neighbours becoming your family - sometimes for the better, sometimes the worse.
I really enjoyed the different powers the kids developed. One of them was kind of messed up (which is good, in my books) and most were weird (which is even better). The art was very simplistic but still pretty effective. It showed very good expression and I was able to recognize certain locations (you know I lost it when I saw the distinct outline of the Viaduct, I've spent HOURS under there).
The ending did have more "closure" than the reviews initially led me to believe, but it was still very open ended and I wanted more information about this event - why it's happening, how large a scale, will it end, is help coming? But the kids don't know any of this either, and we're living through their lives. So it also felt appropriate.
This book is a snapshot of a community before disaster strikes. It's messy and confusing and so much is out of their control, but at the end they're together and cautiously united and safe for now and that's the most they can hope for. I think (sans the supernatural elements obviously) a lot of people in Toronto are living through a version of that terrifying, fragile reality and that theme will resonate with them.
May 25, 2015
We're in Toronto's high-rise, low-income community of St. James Town, the most densely populated neighbourhood in Canada, and birds are falling from the sky. There's a catastrophe coming, and the children of St. James Town can feel it. They've started developing supernatural abilities: Dina can open doors to new worlds, Mackenzie can talk to dead animals, Maha can blow bubbles that show the future—and that future shows a meteor headed their way. It's the end of the world, and the fort is their lifeboat. But it's only make-believe, right?
We meet the children in small snapshots as they encounter their new abilities, and become aware of the impending disaster. Each story is woven into the next as the confusion and anxiety mounts. Verhoeven's brushwork is bold and tense, though at times it gets too frantic. I wasn't always sure how to interpret what was happening.
Still, this was a quick, enjoyable read, even if it didn't quite live up to the potential of its great premise. I loved the very real diversity of the children and their many languages, though I wish we got to see them interacting a bit more as they take on responsibility for their own survival. I look forward to reading more fleshed-out stories from Verhoeven in the future.
We meet the children in small snapshots as they encounter their new abilities, and become aware of the impending disaster. Each story is woven into the next as the confusion and anxiety mounts. Verhoeven's brushwork is bold and tense, though at times it gets too frantic. I wasn't always sure how to interpret what was happening.
Still, this was a quick, enjoyable read, even if it didn't quite live up to the potential of its great premise. I loved the very real diversity of the children and their many languages, though I wish we got to see them interacting a bit more as they take on responsibility for their own survival. I look forward to reading more fleshed-out stories from Verhoeven in the future.
September 17, 2015
I was sent this book from Turnaround UK for review.
I had been reading bits and pieces about Towerkind prior to receiving it to read and review, and was intrigued. It was a very disappointing experience. The bleak story of the end of the world based around the lives of some kids in Toronto, Towerkind was weird, but not really in the fantastical and obscure way I love, it was just a bit misshapen and confusing without really focusing on a good solid plot. I didn't hate it, but I feel like, for a book of its size, it should have focused on one of its small elements and characters and focused solely on that. A shame, I expected more.
2 out of 5
I had been reading bits and pieces about Towerkind prior to receiving it to read and review, and was intrigued. It was a very disappointing experience. The bleak story of the end of the world based around the lives of some kids in Toronto, Towerkind was weird, but not really in the fantastical and obscure way I love, it was just a bit misshapen and confusing without really focusing on a good solid plot. I didn't hate it, but I feel like, for a book of its size, it should have focused on one of its small elements and characters and focused solely on that. A shame, I expected more.
2 out of 5
May 13, 2015
Upon a first read, I know I'm probably missing a lot, but this is a graphic novel worth reading multiple times. It involves people (mostly children) from multi-ethnic backgrounds living in high-rise low income apartments in Toronto on the brink of a catastrophe. Some of the children display supernatural abilities... That's all I'm going to tell you. Re-reading this one might bump it up to five stars.
July 3, 2015
Really wanted to like this book more with its great premise and fantastic artwork but what I read was a disjointed, obtuse narrative that just didn't deliver. Needed way more breathing space for characters and plot to develop.
October 17, 2015
Reviewed over on Women Write About Comics
May 17, 2015
I just couldn't get into it; I liked the diversity of the characters but I really didn't like the unoriginality of the story or the personality of many characters in it.
Read
March 17, 2016Strange but somehow compelling. Totally the wrong size book for a story like this, though. Feels too cramped and like there are pieces missing.
August 12, 2018
Towerkind by Kat Verhoeven is a comic-book story that tells us about a group of "supernatural", multicultural kids that live in apartments called
"The Towers", in Toronto
I liked the foreword, it made me curious about what I was going to read, but I really had trouble seeing the fun on this.
The story is really, really short, and, although the animation was somewhat quirky but likable, I didn't feel it.
I mean, the problem of this is probably its size, as it is so short, you have no time whatsoever to get know the characters, much less like them.
It starts really weird, and it took me a few pages to understand what was even happening and then, when you do understand what's going on, it ends.
We are given no explanations about the kid's powers and no backstory about them.
Ok, so, this has potential, it really does. I would like to see something based off of this, but longer, with decent explanations for whatever is going
on and with well developed characters, but this book isn't really it.
2 out of 5 stars
"The Towers", in Toronto
I liked the foreword, it made me curious about what I was going to read, but I really had trouble seeing the fun on this.
The story is really, really short, and, although the animation was somewhat quirky but likable, I didn't feel it.
I mean, the problem of this is probably its size, as it is so short, you have no time whatsoever to get know the characters, much less like them.
It starts really weird, and it took me a few pages to understand what was even happening and then, when you do understand what's going on, it ends.
We are given no explanations about the kid's powers and no backstory about them.
Ok, so, this has potential, it really does. I would like to see something based off of this, but longer, with decent explanations for whatever is going
on and with well developed characters, but this book isn't really it.
2 out of 5 stars
August 31, 2019
The foreword by Georgia Webber was the most interesting part of the book. I was intrigued by the idea of this multicultural neighbourhood of towers and the intermingling stories therein. Unfortunately Towerkind is a muddled book, attempting for surreal but accomplishing confusion. 1.5 stars/5
November 16, 2023
Small black and white graphic novel, tendency to report a part of history. Got lost in translation as a meaning to say the locals will understand it better. Canadian history?
March 3, 2016
What a tiny, odd graphic novel this is! Set in a neighborhood of high rise apartments in Toronto, Verhoeven endeavors to capture the diversity of the residents and their experience as seen through the eyes of a half dozen young people who live there. They speak multiple languages, wear lots of kinds of clothes and have varied family arrangements. All within the closed world of the apartment blocks. This would have been enough for an interesting little book. It's only 164 5.5 inch pages after all. But she does all this while also telling a supernatural tale of doom. The story is peopled with young characters who are seers or who can hear the warnings of birds. There are two friends who scratch bloody messages to each other on their arms (which appear on their friend's arms several apartments away) and a young girl who talks to dead animals. Kids slip through wormholes in space and can read the future in bubbles. And the future does not look good. And right when the dreaded moment arrives the book ends. Which is an interesting diversion from the way I generally expect books and movies to go these days. And not really a problem for me since I love an unresolved ending. Real life simply does not have very many tidy, bow-wrapped stories in it. But alas the ambition of this book (and its failure to really do all that I thought it set out to) prevented me from really appreciating it. If it were the first volume in a much longer set I would be pleased to pick up the subsequent volumes and dive deeper into these lives and narratives. But it's not and that's it and I feel somewhat unsatisfied.
November 8, 2018
If you’re familiar with the disjointed, stark, non-sequitur vibes of zine comics, you’ll know what I mean when I say that Towerkind is more zine than graphic novel. It’s extremely compact, with each page neatly divided into four quadrants; the inking and lettering are clean and stay within their frames.
I had trouble “reading” the images because of the lack of contrast: there is little variation in line, tone, or perspective, so it feels very visually flat to me. The fact that it’s black and white further complicates the picture (literally) and makes it hard to distinguish any one element in a given frame or page.
I would have liked to see the plot evolve in a more surreal direction, since that was the mood I was getting for most of my reading. In particular, I think the four-frames-per-page structure limits Verhoeven’s ability to convey a dynamic image and narrative. Probably the most important thing I learned from this book is that keeping a work physically and visually “small” necessitates scaling down a “big” story. That’s not to say that it can’t be done, but it is a considerable challenge with these kinds of parameters.
Towerkind is not for me - I prefer to see it as a grad student thesis, and admire what has been accomplished in that context - but I am still going to keep an eye on the works that Verhoeven publishes. I really enjoy consuming local media, and there’s plenty of that to go around in the Greater Toronto Area.
I had trouble “reading” the images because of the lack of contrast: there is little variation in line, tone, or perspective, so it feels very visually flat to me. The fact that it’s black and white further complicates the picture (literally) and makes it hard to distinguish any one element in a given frame or page.
I would have liked to see the plot evolve in a more surreal direction, since that was the mood I was getting for most of my reading. In particular, I think the four-frames-per-page structure limits Verhoeven’s ability to convey a dynamic image and narrative. Probably the most important thing I learned from this book is that keeping a work physically and visually “small” necessitates scaling down a “big” story. That’s not to say that it can’t be done, but it is a considerable challenge with these kinds of parameters.
Towerkind is not for me - I prefer to see it as a grad student thesis, and admire what has been accomplished in that context - but I am still going to keep an eye on the works that Verhoeven publishes. I really enjoy consuming local media, and there’s plenty of that to go around in the Greater Toronto Area.
June 7, 2015
A curious apocalyptic (?) story that centers around a group of kids in the Towerhood of densely populated high-rise apartments in Toronto's St. James Town. All figures are young, there are no adults at all, except from a distance or an incidental family member. It tells us something about who may be best suited for dramatically changing times.
I read this as part of our Publisher Spotlight on Conundrum Press we did for The Comics Alternative: http://comicsalternative.com/episode-....
I read this as part of our Publisher Spotlight on Conundrum Press we did for The Comics Alternative: http://comicsalternative.com/episode-....
May 13, 2015
Very cool graphica - set right here in Toronto-town's first high-rise jungle, St James's Town - about the end of the world from the pov of neighbourhood kids!
December 14, 2015
Confusing but interestingly so
January 17, 2016
Weird, post-apocalyptic, well drawn - sadly, none of these things ever come together to produce a satisfying narrative.
June 16, 2017
This graphic novel is actually super weird.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews