Weird Crime Theater
by Kumar Sivasubramanian & Mulele Jarvis
(2014)
Weird Crime Theater 130-Page Giant is a near-psychotic fever dream collection of the comic book adventures of Granikos “Granny” Kinkade and Melissa the Conqueror – two low-paid subcontractors working for the government to terminate with extreme prejudice: sasquatches, mummies, paramilitary poets, Amelia Earhart, Inca-cursed blow-up dolls, robots, demon gangsters, stoners, Sploochies (don't ask), fishermen, Glenn Miller, rogue Russian scientists, invisible cats, and decency.
Working (or competing) with Granny and Mel are an assortment of weirdos, fringe dwellers, and urban attention seekers including:
Lenny, their dispatcher.
Magic Berkowitz, a man who does not wear enough clothes.
Two-Fisted Sally, 8-years old, cybernetic arms, candy obsessed.
Cerebus, one-time barbarian aardvark, now a writer of 007 porn parody novels; specially pencilled, inked, lettered, and ad-libbed by Dave Sim.
Ninja Pussy, a ninja cat that travels in a baby carriage pushed by a butler.
Legsy McThigh, aka Mistress Kick, a foxy lady with one Lee Haney-sized gam on a quest for revenge.
The book is 130 pages, black and white, standard comic dimensions, and recommended for mature (hah!) audiences.
It contains: graphic violence, nudity, scenes of “congress” (sometimes with vinyl products), drug use, offensive language, defensive language, offenses to intelligence, references to Ulysses and Jane Seymour, adult themes, juvenile themes, and many more corrupting influences and gags.
Weird Crime Theater emerged out of a desire to create a genuinely different comic -- something that would exploit Mulele's unique sense of visual design while also synthesizing Kurt Schaffenberger Lois Lane comics, Star Trek, Heavy Metal, pulp, and gag manga influences into a coherent (?) bumbling detective comic. It is equal parts pretentious yet lowbrow, transgressive yet oddly nostalgic.
Quantities are extremely limited. Once they are gone, they are gone, unlikely to ever be reprinted!