Collects Kim & Kim #1-4: Kim & Kim are twenty-something besties out to make a name for themselves in the wild world of inter-dimensional cowboy law enforcement. In a massive "screw you" to their parents and the authorities, they decide to hijack some high stakes bounty -- and end up in way over their heads. Kim & Kim is a day-glo action adventure that's bursting with energy and enthusiasm. Blending the punk exuberance of TANK GIRL with the buddy adventure wackiness of SUPERBAD (if Michael Cera was a trans woman and Jonah Hill a queer girl partner in crime), Kim & Kim is a bright, happy, punk rock sci-fi adventure that is queer as shit.
Magdalene Visaggio is a comics writer and essayist. She's the writer and creator of the GLAAD and Eisner-nominated series Kim & Kim, as well as Eternity Girl at DC Comics. She currently resides in Manhattan.
ALL THE STARS! I loved EVERY panel! Everything about this book, the art, the writing, the characters... so fucking badass and deliciously queer. I have the biggest crush on Kim D. 💘
I haven't laughed this hard at a comic book since Skottie Young's I Hate Fairyland. I can't wait to read Love is a Battlefield!
Punk rock transgender females who fight things in space should have been interesting but.. ugh and meh.
The plot had no idea where it wanted to go and it was supposed to be.. fun? I was annoyed primarily with trying to figure out what was going on and sleepy the rest of the time.
Well, this certainly sounded better than it was. It was cute at times, but also quite confusing. I did love the art style and the characters were interesting. But I really had to drag my butt through half of the book. Not going to continue with this series. Also not going to write a longer review. I know how touchy people might get about things.
Wow! Just wow! I loved every second of this volume. The only thing that I didn't like was that it was only four issues instead of the usual five! Kim & Kim is truly an incredible series. I adore both Kim's immensely. The writing is down right hysterical and lovable. There were so many amazing moments during this volume that I read it all in one sitting, I couldn't put it down!
Two galactic punk rock bounty hunters named Kim drive a galactic VW bus spaceship and beat up bad guys with their galactic guitars.
The aesthetic is extremely pink with loads of stars, and every third panel contains ACTION ZOOM LINES! so that you know something exciting is happening.
This looks like an overly bright, hyperfrenetic Saturday morning cartoon about girl rock stars from 25 years ago. [EDIT: My wife correctly informed me that I was thinking of Barbie and the Rockers.] The cover hurts my eyes.
Well, I'll be honest... I only read this because it was in a bundle of comics so I got it anyway. Besides, people were comparing this to Cowboy Bebop so it can't be that bad and it wasn't bad just not really good either.
What's it about? Eh... it's complicated. I'll get to that later.
Pros: The art is just fantastic! I really love the art in this book. The characters are fairly interesting, I wanted to know what happened to them. The action scenes are REALLY well done. It is quite funny at times. It's certainly unpredictable. I like the punk kinda tone it goes for and it works really well.
Cons: The thing I was worried about... I noticed the description mentions the 2 main characters being "queer" and I figured that it probably just said that because some people will buy a comic just because "diversity" so you know, I'll still give it a shot (I like sci-fi adventures and punk rock, have nothing against LGBT people, got it in a bundle, so why not?). This book focuses on the diversity stuff a bit too much. The fact that the main characters are diverse does not make me like the book any more or less unless it gets preachy about it, then it makes me like it less. This one isn't as preachy as some books out there but still a bit. The dialogue is pretty bad. The story seems to be a bit all over the place or maybe it wasn't exactly clear enough about what it's really about. The ending is pretty bad. I don't know if this is standard for the publisher but there's like 80 or so pages of previews towards the end, it's kinda ridiculous. I wouldn't mind a few but they just had to advertise almost every book they're putting out (at least it must be pretty close). Not to mention none of them even look like anything particularly good. I eventually stopped reading their giant thing of previews, it's crazy.
Overall: It could've been really good. I know I sure love the idea of a Cowboy Bebop-esque punk rock adventure and there are some really good things about this comic, however, the cons are there and they do unfortunately spoil the book quite a bit.
I heard great things about Kim & Kim, and I was not disappointed. The first issue was so much fun that I ordered Volume One (which collects issues 1-4) before even finishing that first issue. My only complaint is that now I have to wait for Volume Two!
Kim & Kim is about two women who are “mostly platonic” best friends and partners in bounty hunting. Kim and Kim live in a futuristic world where everything is brightly colored and punk. One of the Kims carries an electric guitar. The other carries a pink machine gun. The first bounty has octopus arms. The Kims travel in a flying van.
The dialogue and illustrations are funny and full of crazy action and fashion and fourth-wall-breaking silliness. It’s like cotton candy in comic book form.
I seriously love everything about this comic. I love the characters, I love the story, and I love the art. I love the supporting characters almost as much as I love Kim and Kim. I love that there’s a helpful list of conclusions to draw if you are attacked by robot gorillas, and I love that Kim Q. wants to open a punk bakery: “We’d bake like transgressive muffins and cakes that had ‘queeriarchy’ written on them in fondant and we’d live on love!”
Kim Quatro and Kim Dantzler are best friends trying to make a living as interdimensional bounty hunters. Hands up, how many of you think that they take what's supposed to be an easy job but turns out to have all sorts of complications? While the premise may not be particularly new (off the top of my head: Dirty Pair, Pirate Corp$, Those Annoying Post Brothers, Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, Strontium Dog ...), Visaggio and Cabrera give it enough flash and entertaining dialogue to keep things fun.
They do have a bad habit of skipping over the action though. I lost count of how many times a major action scene was a-brewing, only to have the book jump cut to a scene of the Kims offhandedly describing how they escaped. It's cute, I suppose, but it gets old quickly. I'm not going to recommend this, but it's light and fun. You certainly could do worse ...
Punk rock, bad ass bounty hunters in space. Awesome, I know. And can we say "friendship goals?" Because, yeah. That too. I really liked Kim & Kim, especially for the level of diversity that is represented in the comic. Diverse comic heroes matter, and we get that in spades with our heroines Kim and Kim. We've been getting more and more trans characters featured in comics, and independent/small publishers are definitely the place to look. The story wasn't my absolute favourite, but it was still tons of fun.
While I was reading, I kept on thinking "this is a LOT like Cowboy Bebop, except with queer and trans women". Then after I finished, I saw the back cover said basically that. Okay then!
This is one of those times when something is fine but not quite for me. I don't particularly like Cowboy Bebop or the entire wacky-bounty-hunters-in-space-and-whatnot subgenre it inspired. So this kind of fell flat for me despite the cool art and the epic amount of lampshading in the storyline. I also felt the plot (plot?) was just a bit too haphazard for me, even considering the subgenre.
So I'll not review this one, because it just doesn't seem fair; but if you like Cowboy Bebop and QUILTBAG stuff, then this is your book, go get it now, it is also #ownvoices afaik.
(I would have some minor quibbles with some other aspects but they weren't major. The queer and trans stuff was perfectly fine, as expected.)
THIS IS SO GOOD. Funny, action-packed, queer, smart, and badass. "Mostly-platonic" best friend bounty hunters in a sci fi world. It's a little but punk, a little bit Jem and the Holograms. I will definitely be keeping up with this series.
There is a trend in modern comics to write young female characters with pop-culture drenched dialog and the sort of snappy patter that feel more at home in an episode of Will & Grace than a comic book. It wasn't until reading Magdalene Visaggio's Kim & Kim that I had the obvious realization that the problem was that the snappy pattering young women were all being written by men.
I'm not saying it can't be done successfully by men, Kieron Gillen and Kurtis J. Wiebe have some wonderful female character fronted comics but Vissagio's Kim & Kim feels more honest than either of them. This is not a writer putting on a voice, this is a writer who speaks within the same vernacular as their characters.
Kim & Kim is a grand bounty hunting adventure with fantastic characters who spout one-liners but are not defined by their one-liners. And while there are some genuine villains who put in appearances, this first volume is less a case of good vs. evil than the story of people coming from various sides of a situation, trying to do what's best but fucking up from time to time, as people tend to do.
Eva Cabrera's art and Claudia Aguirre's art and color blend harmoniously here. The panels are laid out fairly traditionally (they're not on a Watchmen grid or anything, but I don't remember any characters breaking out of a panel) and sometimes feel slightly cramped, but certainly less cramped than a lot of modern superhero comics.
This is a fun, and well-paced sci-fi adventure that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys the offbeat action of Chew, Vol. 1: Taster's Choice or wish there were more buddy-cop style comics that featured two female characters.
I would also recommend it to the old dudes who come into stores and complain about how Marvel & DC keep "turning" classic characters female instead of inventing new and exciting female characters in comics. If you're one of those guys (you're probably not reading this), put your money where your dick is and buy this book. It's awesome.
Real Score: 3.5/5 A fast-paced comic that features two kick-ass queer women with lots of bright colours in a scifi world of bounty hunting across the galaxy. Following two best friends, both named Kim, the narrative is about two young women trying to establish their independence as bounty hunters. Set in a fantastic world of aliens and interdimensional planets, these two awesome ladies bond as partners and over their hopes and dreams for the future.
I really appreciated the efforts of Magalene Visaggio and Eva Cabrera for creating a comic that has diverse representation of LGBTQIA characters and characters of colour. One of the main characters is a trans woman (which is officially canon as part of the comic's story), and the story cleverly explores her experiences through relationships she has with other characters.
Minor things that I didn't get along with was the pace of the book and some of the humour. I didn't really like how fast paced the book was because it lead to some rough connections between chapters/issues. And while there were some parts of the book I found funny, the humour overall didn't really stick to me.
Overall, this was a fun and fantastic reads. A scifi world featuring distant planets and spaceships along with WOC and LGBTQIA people.
This didn't do a ton for me personally, it felt like there was a LOT stuffed into 4 issues and the world/characters mostly never quite gelled for me? But the art is very fun and I enjoyed the banter between the 2 Kims, and it's definitely great to have a fun space/dimensional adventure with queer & trans characters. I just personally wish it were....slightly more fun? I guess?
What’s with putting sweet art on covers to trick people into picking stuff up only to find something filled with crappy faux-manga-styles? I was annoyed before I’d even started. Made it through about 1/3 before I gave up. According to my gf I “tossed it across the room in disgust”.
Alright, this was not great but it does have good characters and vibrant, colorful art. The problem is the plot. It jumps all over the place and one storyline was pretty much abandoned. I am going to try the second volume only because I want to see what happens with the characters (both the Kims and their mercenary buddies), but this volume is getting purged.
This was super fun! Bounty hunting Kims D and Q are trying to pay their rent and stay one step ahead of galactic crime lord El Scorcho as they help polyform Tom Quilt. They're funny and kick-ass, and I want all of their outfits. Also, there is a sandworm named Edgar, and Kim Q wallops people with a guitar, while Kim D shoots them with a bright pink Kalashnikov. Seriously, super fun.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Kim & Kim are queer interdimensional bounty hunters that travel in a space-modified VW van. Imagine if the Mystery Machine could fly, and you've basically got what they live and work in.
This buddy-cop comic, where instead of buddies the cops are significant others, is a wild ride with restaurant window crashing adventures and gun-wielding battles.
I picked up this comic because the diversity sounded awesome. Who wouldn't want more queer and trans representation in a comic?
As much as I wanted to truly love this comic, I couldn't get past the forced writing. Every section felt like it was forcing the character's backstories down my throat while also maintaining the current bounty hunt. The two stories weren't woven as cleanly and it made much of the writing feel cluttered. Or maybe more like a rollercoaster?
I couldn't get attached to the characters and want to follow their story. Kim Q. and Kim D. have a lot to share about their lives and how they came to be a couple. But forcing all of that character backstory right away didn't hook me. It made me less inclined to keep reading.
The story stopped and started a lot. We'd be on some bounty adventure, suddenly the characters would jump scenes and recount the battle, or what they woke up to. At points, I didn't mind the change of scene that cut out the exposition. But I did want to know what happened further with those plots because the sudden jump cut seemed like a cop out.
The art is colorful and it's great to see the punk clothing spliced in a space-western.
Don't get me wrong. This is a fun comic overall with its Space!Cowboy Punk world. Maybe this comic isn't my cup of tea, but I think the writing could be stronger and give us more depth to the characters than what was repeated in every chapter/issue. Pick this up if you want to give it a shot and explore the diverse world created.
This kicked ass. It's crazy fun, full of dumb laughs but also lots of heart. The Kims are each fun in their own way, though I've gotta give the love to Kim Q. smacking people with a guitar. Kim Q is also trans, which is handled really well, which is unsurprising given writer Magdalene Visaggio is trans. Kim Q's trans status isn't something that's brought up constantly, but it's casually referenced a few times when she speaks of her past. It's always great to see trans representation in comics, especially with a badass woman who smacks people with a guitar and who can also be amusingly thick. The plot is fairly straightforward, except for when it's not. The book has a tendency to just skip over fairly important stuff (LIKE THE RESOLUTION TO THE ENTIRE PLOT!) and have characters just give quick recaps of what happened. This is never frustrating, it's just another part of the charm of the book. The protagonists aren't level-headed or sane, so why should the book be? The art matches the writing, bright and colourful and energetic and a bit punk rock, but the art team also delivers hard on the more intimate moments.
This book is called Kim & Kim, but should be called Boring & Boring. Sorry, that may seem harsh, however the story is uneven and not interesting. The banter between Kim and Kim is funny at times like a 1980's buddy cop movie, however unlike a 1980's buddy cop movie there is very little action scenes and even less plot. For a story about inter-galactic bounty hunter chicks with a punk rocker attitude it is very tame and drags on. At one point the chapter ends with the statement "Next: we skip over the action part!" and in the next chapter it does. No action scenes, nothing but more boring dialog. This happens again later on in the story with another action scenario set up that ends in monotonous talking scenes.
Don't get me wrong, I am not all about the Bam, Biff, and Boom action in comic books; even though I do like them. I also really enjoy graphic novels where the story is interesting, intriguing, and keeps me wanting to read. This book has neither.
The only saving grace of this book is the art work. I like the colorful cartoony art style.
This brings me to the end of my queer comics mini-binge, and this one was my favorite of the lot. It's about two trans women who are space bounty hunters! It's cute, funny, and silly, cartoon-like in the best possible way (especially when the oat gore happens off screen). Kim and Kim's relationship as besties-platonic life partners is wonderful to read about, I'm such a sucker for queer chosen family! I'll definitely be checking out future volumes for some fun escapism.
Liked the art, the queerness, the characters, but the writing and pace were too frenetic for me to actually get invested and care what was going on. They literally drop whole plots or summarize them in a sentence just to be cute.
Loved the characters and character design, coloring, artwork, and "omniverse". The plot itself was a bit jumpy, but it was fun and funny along the way.