Battlemouth

Sometimes when I go to pick up my comics, I spend some time just scanning the shelves for new books I have yet to hear of. My insane blog-roll as well as all the publishers I am affiliated with, there is rarely too much that I have not at least seen something about somewhere. Regardless of the frequency of discoveries, I still look.

This week my curiosity and diligence paid off with an interesting find.
I know that I am long winded and probably say more than I need to in a review, but this book is truly unique and I hope you will read through this whole review if only to get to the end and see why you should pick this up.

Before I get into this any further, I would like to offer a small disclaimer:
Prior to reading this book I had never heard of TKOWH (The Kids of Widney High).
I knew nothing of how “special” they truly are. Now I do, and I think that I maybe be in love.

A gorgeous cover drawn by the great Jim Mahfood with colors by Justin Stewart drew me in a second. I am a very aesthetic person, so bright colors and sharp lines really draw me in…kind of like a raccoon. One other thing about the cover that I noticed was the lack of any publisher mark. That’s right, no Marvel, DC, Image, IDW or anyone else stamped on the front, a mark (or lack there of) that immediately made me curious. I grew even more interested when I opened the book to discover a list of six different well established artists that had each taken some different pages of the book. Robbi Rodriguez, Rafael Navarro, Rikki Neihaus, Neal Von Flue, Chuck BB, and Chris Brandt, all gave their time to make this book look great.
Ok well parts of it look great…some of it is just not my style, and looks a bit crowded…
Overall though, I felt it gave the book a unique twist that I think everyone will appreciate.
Story by a group of several strange names I had never heard of followed by “The Kids of Widney High!”
“Cool,” I said to my self. “A book written by a group of kids, I’m sold!”

The set up is pretty standard, we discover that The Kids of Widney High are a huge pop band and last night at one of their shows two girls were abducted, allegedly by the evil Professor Groofball (not a typo). The new female President of the United States is having some standard drama involving her spouse and the LAPD is being stretched thin as gangs war throughout the city. Sure things sounded a little flimsy, but for a group of kids, what did I expect? I kept reading…

Our first two characters are some well dressed policemen, Sgt. Fernandez and Captain Goodhope, hot on the trail of some Russian mobsters…things start out ok, but the tall “Will Smith-ish” one, for some reason, keeps saying that ‘crime is the disease” and apparently he is the cure…seriously I think he says it almost 5 or 6 times in the first few pages.

“A comedy?” I wondered to myself.

The book starts to take a turn for the…odd…when Goodhope tells his the Sgt. to calm down because “We’ve got wives, man”. To which Fernandez replies “You’re right. When this is over, we should spend some quality time with our wives.”
Maybe it’s because I read too much Ennis, but this whole panel just seemed so odd to me. In fact, the entire book began to give me this very strange feeling, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what exactly it was until I finished the book.
The next several pages go off on a tangent about Fernandez needing to leave his wife sometimes and hitch hike across the country to just get away…then he just comes back a day, week, or even a month later. After our two good cops crash their hover car into the fleeing Russian Mobsters, and the President summons them to the White House mid-Mirandas ……..We are taken to the cell containing the aforementioned kidnapped girls, and another young man.

At this point I am just getting confused, between the Russian Mob, the kidnapping, the estranged policeman, and now this new preachy character trapped with the girls…

The next several pages consist of this fellow trapped in the cage with the girls (how he got there is unclear) preaching about how it isn’t fair that people of mixed heritage think it is ok to look down on handicapped people. He goes on and on and on about how people are just people to this Professor Groofball character, apparently trying to show him the error of his ways.
Then a large guy with angel wings, flying over the city with a dude on his back get contacted on their Dick Tracy-esque wrist watches by Goodhope and Fernandez…they are to find the two girls. Somehow, even though the flying guy points out they have no idea where to look, they find the kidnappers in a couple minutes and crash in through the roof.

I won’t ruin the ending for you, suffice to say that someone might appear and throw spiders on the bad guy (which makes total sense in a minute). By the time I reached the last page I was utterly shocked that this had actually been printed and was on the shelf at my comic book shop. If it weren’t for the fact that I probably have some sort of attention myself, there is no way I would have made it through this book. The dialogue felt like it had been spewed from the mouth of a drunken, mongloid and the plot had so many holes and such little continuity I was sure that my 6 year old nephew had probably outlined the story.

Then I read the final page of the book… and everything changed.
Here is what it said:

“The Kids of Widney High are graduates of a special ed high school in LA where they were students in a songwriting class. Although the class has been going on for many years with students coming and going, this group of 7 has stuck together making CD’s, performing live shows (The House of Blues, The Viper Room, etc), acting in movies (The Ringer, Dinner Time, etc), creating art for a clothing line (www.betterbacon.com) and now, writing a comic book. Nothing stops the Kids of Widney High.”

How much of a dick did I feel like? I immediately got online and started looking these kids up. There are countless videos on youtube of shows, and interviews, documentaries, and just plain silly stuff showing just how special and TALENTED these kids really are.
Each song, while simple is really fun and enjoyable. I plan on pirating all of their albums as soon as I find them. After I watched about 50 assorted videos and read some info on this rag-tag band of kids, I quit banging my head against the wall to punish my self for being such a raging asshole, and I sat down and read the book over.

Each one of these silly characters in the comic book is actually one of the kids from the group. I found out that lots of the dialogue for the book was actually taken as direct quotes from some of their brainstorming sessions they had to come up with the idea. After my second read through my opinion had completely changed. Not out of pitty or because I felt bad, but because of the purity and simplicity of the book I held in my hands. The story of the Kids of Widney High is so incredible and innocent. This is what a comic book would have looked like if me and my 6 best friends way back when we were kids, would have gotten together with a writer and tried our hand at comic book creators. It is fun, everyone is awesome, the things that are important to us as individuals shine through in our characters. I realized that all the parts I found so odd weren’t odd at all, the were just what this group felt! They aren’t really kids anymore, the KOWH are all older now, some are married (guess which ones) and have lived through a lot of shit. All of the hardships they have had to face, which are undoubtedly some that most haven’t had to deal with, mixed with all of the OTHER bullshit that we do deal with…Jobs, money, family, bills, the economy, love, loneliness…these people have been through that TOO and yet they don’t put out a comic book about killing things, or demons, or strange disasters that kill everyone…

…They self published a book where the hero’s talk about spending time with their wives, the President tells the media to fuck off and mind their business, the good guys don’t have to be skinny or pretty, if a couple gets in a fight they make up instead of splitting up, the bad guys are afraid of spiders, and yes some crutches can shoot electricity. Maybe if more people took a lesson or two from these guys and gals, our world wouldn’t be such an angry, shitty place. I know I could certainly use some of their positive thinking.

So tomorrow or later today, whenever you pick up your comics next, please ask for this book. All the money goes to the KOWH, everyone involved gave their time for free. I also recommend you check out some of their music, once this goes live I will probably be bliping it on twitter if you don’t want to have to search!

And to The Kids of Widney High, I appologize for being a bastard. I assure you there is a special place in hell already reserved for me. I would love to see Issue 2!