Elephantmen – Richard Starkings and Moritat
I remember seeing Elephantmen at my first Comic-Con in 2005, but it was one of those things I jotted down to check out later … and then never got around to it. This year they were handing out some of their old issues for free so I picked up a couple, from December 2006 and March 2007. While it’s hard to get a real sense of the storyline, here’s what I can gather: the Elephantmen (who aren’t specifically elephants) are animal-human hybrids, originally bred as slaves or workers. It’s hard to say exactly how things stand at this point in the story, but they do appear to be somewhat integrated into society, following a bloody uprising sometime in the past.
The stories have a film noir feel to them—it actually reminds me of Calvin’s “Tracer Bullet” alter ego, only much more deadly. The artwork is fantastic and the animals look real and massive and dangerous. But it’s certainly not something you want to leave lying around if you have young kids—one of the issues I have shows an elephant, blood dripping from his tusk, about to stomp on a very bloody man—quite gruesome and not kid-friendly in the least.
The two bits I’ve seen are good enough that I’m curious to start at the beginning
