J+K

by John Pham

Winner of PUCHI AWARD 2017

Situado en un cruce imaginario entre Peanuts y Seinfeld, con el color como absoluto protagonista, enriquecido con diversos contenidos extra e inagotable en su sencillez, J+K es un objeto de arte en sí mismo que festeja la cultura popular y sus artefactos –discos, revistas, videojuegos– para acompañar las aventuras de dos huérfanas en el trivial escenario de un centro comercial. Con el color como absoluto protagonista, J+K consigue mover a la empatía al lector, sumergiéndole en un tono reflexivo y agridulce que se percibe con los cinco sentidos, como un objeto de consumo irónicamente perfecto.

INCLUYE: revista risografiada con insertos, mapa de videojuego, tarjeta veterinaria, pegatinas y disco de vinilo extracute de cinco pulgadas.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Humor, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Comix, Comics Manga

144 pages, Hardcover

First published October 25, 2017

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really moving story about friendship and all the sacrifices we make everyday just to survive - saw so much of 2020 'mirrored' in this simple but deep story about just trying to make it - art is wonderful - highly recommended.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

J + K are two teen girls, sort of clueless, just ramblin' on. A trope, a way to cope: Friends, Laurel and Hardy, Bevis and Butthead, and now these two slacker, clueless girlz just wandering through the world, which is very colorful. . . I'd call it tropical colored, almost neon, lime, orange, majenta. There's a prominent grannie character. I dunno, it's kinda cute.

I got this from the library, so it didn't include what it promised: Posters, stickers, a small vinyl record. . . sort of reminds me of Chris Ware multi-media packaging, which I (theoretically, since I didn't see it) like. Fake ads throughout. Collects strips from over a few years.

Let's see, and example. Well, this one isn't typical, because it has a touch of sadness in it: J + K stroll into the woods with a little guy they seem to (badly) caring for, Bacne, and they encounter some scary ghouls (who are actually just homeless guys, one of them a vet with ptsd. Since J + K are not so good at taking care of Bacne, the homeless guys agree to help. . until Bacne knocks down the ptsd guy's lean to shelter. So a mix of sweetness, whimsy, real world sadness?

[Diego Munoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t find these characters to be idiotic at all. Perhaps a tad young, introverted and shy, but not stupid.

I really loved the interesting characters, they are drawn in a fun and unique style and you can sense their characteristics.

Not much happens in this book. It’s two characters, J & K, who go to the mall, avoid people, try to get a job, etc. I found it to be really sweet, quirky and funny.

The colors and way that it was printed was very appealing also. Awesome work!!

[Jesús · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collects a bunch of J&K strips of varying quality and length. As the collection goes along, the strips get shorter and sharper (presumably arranged chronologically, and thereby illustrating Pham's growth as a cartoonist), but Pham never quite hits his stride. Many strips are good, but they are never great. There are many strips that I wish were cut down to a single-page and told using a more concise six-panel grid.

In the J&K comics, a pair of anthropomorphic, crass, slacker-ish, teen girls (wait, are they dogs?) waste time, get into trouble, and pick on those around them. It’s like any of a dozen other slacker, buddy, stoner strips from the ‘90s and ‘00s. Entertaining in places, but mostly just forgettable fun.

The print version also includes a mini comic, some cards, a mini-poster, and a mini-record. This gorgeous junk is the best part of the whole experience!

[André Habet]

Did not feel or think much as I read through this one. What I had hoped would be a fun existential and absurdist comic strip in the league of Simon Hanselmann, Lisa Hanewalt, and Michael DeForge was instead a very lite mode of those contemporaries. The humor rarely landed for me as it relied on lazy wordplay and worldbuilding that seemed uninterested in doing anything with beyond an initial pun.

The funniest part is the midpoint transition to a 'cat v. dog'-style strip that hardly changes anything about the book but a hangout swap of a dog park for the former mall. I think this book is intended to be a slightly morbid and nihilistic sunny romp, but it's not enough of any of those adjectives to stick with me after closing. This is likely my last thought about the book. So say we all.

[disco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird, cute, and colorful.

[Dan Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

J+K - Cute, clever, universally relevant, unapologetically weird, and surprisingly grotesque this contains a number of vignettes where J and K go on their sweaty mundane adventures with one another. Trying to live life stealing one taco roll at a time

The best way to describe it would be grown-up Peanuts but the characters do not hate each other as much. Love the bold colors that make you feel as if you are watching a children's cartoon despite the more mature storylines.

The cartooning is solid especially when it comes comedic timing. I do not believe there was a comedic best that did not hit like it was designed. With the chaos of our world books like this are vital in remaining sane.

[aida · Rating 5 out of 5]

brutal

[Matias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant colour choices

[Peter Hollo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read most of these stories already, but this was still unexpectedly touching!
John Pham's artwork is stunning, as is his craftsmanship. There are little pamphlets and tiny minicomic and even a 5" vinyl record with some spacerock.

[Litwithlove · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I found this book at the thrift store I quickly jumped to the conclusion that this was going to be a guaranteed five star read. Look at that gorgeous cover, those rich colors and alluring art style. But then it all fell really flat. I like books about the mundane and small day to day happenings of just being a person existing in the world. Slice of life and little adventure stories are my jam. Usually the things that draw me in to these stories are a notable punch of humor or wit, maybe some deeper musings on life. I got very little of that from this, with two exceptions. The first exception being the unhoused war veteran and the way that his ptsd is portrayed. My empathy was immediately peaked and I would have loved just a little bit more of him interacting with our main characters.
The second exception is what pulled this book from a doomed to be 2 star to a solid 3, and that is the latter half of the book when Jay, Kay, and Eggy become dogs and a cat, respectively. ( Eggy as a Garfield cat in a Charlie Brown sweater is so charming.) For so much of the book I felt basically nothing for anyone, I was uninterested in their world or relationships with one another. But then our characters become furry friends and the story became all engrossing to me. (*Here is your spoiler warning *)
I would never have guessed that Kay would develop double kidney failure, Jay would become her sole care taker and in turn losing a lot of her own identity outside of care giver. Ultimately Kay succumbs to her illness. I just wish that I had more reason to be invested in their shared lives prior to this, because I think that this plot point would have hit just that much harder if I actually liked the characters. If the first 75% of the book had more of a story I could see this having been a 4 or 5 star review. But the way that this end part is told did hit me with a strong enough emotional whollop to pull my review up by a full star.
I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, but I could see it resonating with the right people.
It's kind of reminiscent of a Broad City, or Ghost world.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️

[Julen B · Rating 1 out of 5]

Garfield cute pero absolutamente vacío de contenido.

[King]

The ending came fast and out of nowhere but I loved the world and characters

[Eric T. Voigt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my gosh what a total bummer. Things start out rough for Jay and Kay and only get rougher. The colors are spectacular, too bright to call pastel but I'm not sure how to really describe them. A bit of a vaporwave tone. I'd like to read further adventures, though this seems to be a full stop on the story. And maybe "like" is the wrong word, as I feel rather down after all that.

[mads · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely obsessed. the stories were somewhat lacking in development but i didn't mind bc this book was a v comforting, fun experience all the same. each page was gorgeous n the bonus goodies really got me

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This style sticks with you, and the colors are beautiful 🌈
My version had little extras tucked inside the cover that made the whole thing feel intimate, reminded me of spending time with my friends

[Mallory Pittman · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Pham is a genius. No notes.

[Jara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un rollazo

[Chris Browning · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, let’s talk about the book itself as an object. I am not kidding when I say this is the sort of volume I have been literally dreaming of for years - the attention to detail in keeping the format (slightly off printed colours, evoking Japanese manga from the seventies and a bit of John Stanley’s work) consistent, the extras tucked away in the inner sleeve (which I’ve been trying to do a bit with some of my comics) that culminates in an actual 5” vinyl record… it’s a sublime object of art and feels like I’ve barely been chipping away at its wonders

But the content is a very different thing: a sort of cross between slacker comedy and pastiche of pulp kids comics that eventually heads into bizarre animal led stuff, but one that also has a line of absurdism that becomes more and more unsettling and eventually tragic. It sort of slyly hides the more Charles Burns body horror stuff from us, even though it’s literally bedded in the text (the adorably tragic Bacne, the graveyard mutants, the vampires in the mall and the peculiar Babushka lady), so when things take a tragic turn it’s at first really surprising. But when you think about it, it’s a book that literally starts with Jay sweating her initial through her top which eventually becomes her baby (which she then sometimes neglects). This is there from the start and it’s a testament to Pham’s considerable skills as artist, writer and designer that this never feels like a sudden dramatic lurch, whilst also being almost imperceptible as the narrative goes on

And of course it sort of ends with a coda where Kay is still alive, so how much of this is literal? And how much does whether or not it’s literal actually matter? I mean the whole thing calls attention to the fact it’s a book (complete with pastiche adverts) from the start. For such a seemingly slight book it’s incredibly dense with potential meanings. It’s a masterpiece and one that doesn’t provoke envy but instead feels like a new yardstick to aspire to. An astonishing thing

[Keith Kavanagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

so nice, I've never seen such care put into the production of a book before
funny, melancholy and it contains a crossword honey !

[Jed Richardson]

Man... Wish I had more to say about this.

Some of the most stunning colouring and simple cartoon work I've maybe ever seen. This book practically glows, its absolutely gorgeous.

But, it just feels SO undercooked in every aspect other than the visual presentation. Characters are barely distinguishable in terms of personality, world is bizarrely undercooked, and a lot of the worldbuilding is just non-existent or impossible to decipher (why is one of the characters a bunch of eggs?).

I enjoyed the concluding chapter most of all, in spite of the fact that the characters just inexplicably turn into cats and dogs? The whole thing just struck me as very half-baked.

But, my god is Pham one talented colourist!

[Chris M · Rating 3 out of 5]

A chill, demented saturday morning cartoon of a comic.
It's rare that I read something and have zero thoughts on it, especially if I enjoy it. J & K is one of those books.
Well, I mildly enjoyed it.
Art was ok, got fun little characters. Great colour.
Humour was fine. Felt dated. Like a comic written in the nineties, with mall and booger jokes and whatnot.
I don't highly recommend this.....

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

A truly beautiful looking book but it never feels like the characters or stories really go anywhere.

[Rick Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

J&K is a collection of John Pham's strips over the years. The strips are centered on a pair of lackadaisical teen girls who complain about mundane stuff and like hanging out at the mall - not too dissimilar from other standard stoner/slacker comic strip. Pham leans heavily into '80s nostalgia and much of the humor seems to appeal to the crass, juvenile humor that originated from the sensibilities of the emerging alternative comix movement of that time. That isn't a bad thing - if the jokes actually landed. A lot of the punchlines here are droll puns/wordplay that barely registered for me. As we get towards the end with Pham's more matured strips, the book begins to hit a momentum that does propel it above the lower quality jokes. By the end, Pham's strips become 1-2 pages in length and turn into something a bit more introspective. Starting with "The Accident", the following strips deal with J and K reckoning with identity, their heavy indulgence into nostalgia, and how they deal with loss. It's a surprising turn for the book, but it comes a little too late to really justify the first 80% of strips preceding it.

Pham's cartooning and overall sense of design are excellent though. Sticking to a uniform layout of six-panel grids for the most part, Pham's illustrations convey a strong sense of confidence. Despite the simplicity in the character designs, the artwork is very emotive allowing for subtle expressions like snark to be easily conveyed. The stippling effect for the colors are also powerfully done, and even though Pham adheres to a limited color palette, the final effect is very vibrant. The book itself is even nicely designed and shows a strong sense of craftmanship on Pham's part.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

At the beginning of this book, J and K are two young women friends. By its end, they are two anthropomorphized dogs. (Similarly, their friend Eggy transforms into a dog that looks like “Garfield’s” Odie with acromegaly wearing a Charlie Brown sweater.) Between these points, the living remains of a popped zit from J’s shoulder, named Bacne, takes toddler form, over which she and K take negligent-parent responsibility.

Told over a series of magazine-like installments, J & K includes full-page advertisements for the places visited and things used by J and K throughout the book’s telling. In addition to telling stories, Pham is also keen on incorporating pop culture into his works. Thus, in addition to the story, the book J & K also includes playing cards, a 45rpm record, a mini-comic (itself including inserts and a fold-out image), instructions for a fictional video game called “Dance Warrior,” and a sheet of stickers showing images from South Town Super Mall, where most of the book’s slacker-action occurs. All of this using the limited palette of glorious risograph, an inexpensive way of printing in color.

The longer narratives give way, toward the end, to two-page spreads (about as long as comics were on Sunday newspapers), each ending on a punchline of sorts but forming part of an overarching narrative after one of them has been diagnosed with cancer, and their directionless lives stop. (Not to worry, J & K fans: They’re back in Epoxy #6, self-published by Pham.)

(For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/... )

[La Central · Rating 4 out of 5]

"«Buscamos un libro». Así se abrían las bases de la primera convocatoria de los Puchi Awards, premio creado por La Casa Encendida y la editorial Fulgencio Pimentel y cuyo jurado está integrado por profesionales de la cultura y la edición. El premio nace de la búsqueda de la vanguardia literaria y gráfica, de la originalidad y de la ruptura. Se buscaba «un libro único en su género, incluso un género en sí mismo». Y, entre más de 600 proyectos entregados, el ganador ha sido un cómic. ¡Bravo por eso, Puchi Awards!

Por su originalidad, por su renovado sentido del cómic como artefacto reivindicativo de la cultura pop en varios formatos y por la diversidad de público al que se dirige, la obra galardonada ha sido J+K de John Pham.

Jay y Kay son dos amigas huérfanas que pasan las horas en un centro comercial buscando trabajos precarios, releyendo revistas antiguas de cocina y alternando con postadolescentes adictos a la música nihilista en francés. Costumbrismo postmoderno y consumista que, sin embargo, consigue reivindicar el valor de la amistad, del sentido del humor y de la reflexión. Varias técnicas de encuadernación, de impresión risográfica y algunos contenidos extra hacen de este cómic, paradójicamente, un objeto de consumo perfecto." Sílvia Aymí

[Yakov Hadash · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is really just kind of okay-ish. The three stars are mostly for presentation.

John Pham has started and stopped many promising stories in the pages of his one-man anthologies EPOXY, SUBSTITUTE LIFE, and again EPOXY; as well as making contributions to KRAMERS ERGOT, MOME, and others. This whole time I was always expecting him to pick one of the many stories and threads and flesh it out into a graphic novel. So many of them were so promising and diverse (stories about a boxer, a Korean family, a robot teenager DJ, a family of white nationalists, kids who journey to the center of the earth, an astronaut on drugs) but his big debut book ended up being this -- a boring pair of bored teenagers hanging out and doing very little. Even Pham shows boredom with the premise 3/4 of the way through when he pointlessly switches the characters to dogs and cats.

My favorite part of this book is the background character designs and the coloring style which somehow makes a Chinese factory printed book look like risograph. The pack-in bonuses including a vinyl single are kind of neat but also forgettable in the end.

Kinda meh.

[Nino Ursula]

poor cartoon-network/kiddie version of an adult swim series whose only redeeming factor is its risograph texture. design-wise, writing-wise, everything wise it is devoid of risk, originality, or any substance. it's cute looking but very safe-cute, these character designs could be snuck into the background of "gravity falls" or maybe even "meg, mogg and owl" and they would scarcely feel out-of-place, not because of a fictional sense of harmony, but because they are so poor and bland they belong in the corner...

[Luke John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charming tales of life centering around two young women and their odd collection of friends. Strangely moving at times, the stories generally focus on the surreal whilst being grounded in the insecurities of entering the adult world. There is a thread throughout the tales which isnt always clear but ultimately leads to an undeniable conclusion. The bonus bits are fun too.