"Good job, we say.Good job, two-feet. Pack and pack, we do walk-round, keep the cold place clean. Two-feet he sleeps long time, but he tell us,keep them offa my lawn! Yes, he does."
"What is lawn, old man?"
"I dunno. Part of the tale, so it's right."
As the old joke goes, it's the way you tell 'em.
There are no original stories left, so they say. English graduates will nod sagely about there being only seven plots in existence; TV Tropes is at hand to dissect the very minutiae of everything from romantic comedies to space operas into clearly-coloured building-blocks - and all from the same playset. Spare a thought then for the Auxes, who have only one tale, literally one tale, The Tale, to sustain them and corral their wandering thoughts during long, arduous treks through the desolate and stony Antarctic wastes... but while there's only one tale, there's more than one way to tell it. Old Man Gary steps and dances to the beat of every phrase, calling and responding with the audience, enunciating with expression and gesture; Gene Hackman grunts it out, not even looking at his audience, less concerned for exciting the listener than he is for his own ruminations on what he himself makes of what he's relating.
The tale of Two-Feet-Walk-on-the-Ground is a microcosm of Kingdom's quiet genius. At first glance it may seem simple, almost perfunctory - muscular characters, constant action, set against a barren, rocky landscape that is conveniently devoid of detail and can be drawn with a minimum of effort. However, there are hidden depths beneath its calm surface; patternings which look dull and repetitive up close but, when you draw out and expand your scope, blossom out into fractal splendour. Kingdom brandishes its fist but then opens its palm - its sophistication steals up on you to enhance its effect with a pleasant surprise. There may be only one tale, but that does not mean it is a simpleton who tells it. To begin relating that story, then:
Kingdom is first of all a post-apocalyptic science-fiction action-adventure. A breed of savage and murderous giant insect - known prosaically as Them, others not of us - has risen up to claim the earth from mankind as mammals did from the dinosaurs. The beleaguered remnants of the (losers of the) race have retreated to the fastness of a drained, dried-out Antartica, where they place themselves into cold sleep in the hope of waiting out the irruptions while their genetically-engineered guard dogs, the Auxes, patrol the continental wastes and fend off Their incursions - contented and dutiful; Man's Best Friend.
Gene, whose sharp blades identify him as a Hackman (the remaining humans lost a lot but not, it seems, their sense of humour... or wistful memory of better times, either), is Alpha Male, leader of a pack of Auxes. Day after day, at dawn and dusk, he and his pack will receive the psychic Urgings, the instructions from their Masters driving them on to cross dusty plains and scrap with Them - and there's scrapping a-plenty that needs to be done. And Gene Hackman and his packmates do so, because they're good, loyal dogs - but then at the most critical juncture in the long generations of defence of the Cold Place, the Urgings for the first time fail to come...
The graphic novel of Kingdom: The Promised Land contains two stories serialised in 2000AD, both written by Abnett and drawn by Elson, and lettered by Ellie de Ville and Simon Bowland. The first is the 2006-2007 Thrill Kingdom, and the latter the 2008 sequel Dinky-Pinky Goes to Town. Kingdom caused quite a stir when it was first released, with many responding to its debut instalment in Prog 2006 with something approaching bafflement, but over time its uncommon character endeared affection to it and it became the sleeper hit of the year. The Promised Land shows that the formula need not be stuck with set variables, and refreshes the scenario while still keeping the same mannerisms that distinguished the first book.
The most impressive aspect of Kingdom is its ear for language. There is a weird poetic cadence to the argot of the Auxes; the repeating elements - "scrapping", "get whet", "walk-around", "offa the lawn" - not so much quotable catchphrases as rhythmic beats marking time. Their speech is simplistic, but the thoughts driving them are not - it's truly fascinating to see the Auxes struggle about how to articulate what they meet on their journey; "land-meets-sea" rather than simply the shore; the "Not-Rock" of Their land bridge is another good early example. All this talk about rhyme and meter means that when the Auxes are plain spoken - when one's facing down a rival's challenge, he quite suddenly comes out with "maybe you eat shit and die. Maybe you are in love with me and want to be my bitch-boy", and later on the gross and grotesque filth and perversity of them makes one want to "chuck his guts" - it has a suprising, forceful, disarming effect which increases its impact. The focus on language also brings to the fore some strong and affecting wordplay, particularly evolution being the "evil you shun" near the climax to The Promised Land. "Your mouth is full of strange", indeed.
It isn't limited to the gruntings of the Auxes, either - Abnett does incredibly well with cramming a wealth of meaning into the tight confines of a speech bubble. When we are first introduced to the farmers of The Promised Land, a whole world is built with but a single line - the boy's response to his schoolmaster that the land is kept fresh "by good plow and tiller, Learner, and by hormone dusting". In just one moment we get a real handle on the nature of these technology-savvy Future Amish.
Abnett even manages to give bloated parasitic ticks a bit of character!
In his introduction to the graphic novel, Abnett speaks of there being a satirical element to his plot. This may not seem to be immediately be in evidence, but it's actually apparent right from the beginning of the story - the Auxes receive the Urgings that direct them at every daybreak and sunset, but in the opening instalment they're so preoccupied by hard scrapping against Them that they neglect to do so - and thereafter the Urgings stop arriving altogether, which is where the adventure proper begins. Is the missing of a session - the breaking of a cycle, however inadvertant and unintended - and the disappearance of the Urgings connected? It's something that may reflect on the routine, received wisdom and Done Things that govern so much of our own lives.
Elson is an old favourite of mine - I grew up with his work on Sonic the Comic - and as I only began reading 2000AD regularly in recent years Kingdom's serialisation in the weeklywas my first reintroduction to his art after a substantial hiatus. Happily, my memories of him weren't seen through rose-tinted spectacles, and he restored everything that I remembered fondly about him. The gear worn and wielded by the Auxes recalls Red Indian dress - an effective design choice which visually reinforces their nomadic character and tough dispositions. The nature of Them is also striking - devilishly insectoid, they tick all the right boxes for 'evil swarming bug-hordes', but there's more to them than that. The most distinctive element of Their design is Their oversized forearms - massive stalactities of flesh which contrast starkly with the spindly nature of the rest of Their bodies allow them to be bpth scuttle-quick and heavy and strong, enhancing their threat and lethality admirably. There's room for quieter subtlety as well, in small notes such as the energetic twist and bounce of the hose that a happy girl is washing down an Aux with after a victory against Them. For those who complained that Elson was dialling it in with those bare backgrounds in the first book, The Promised Land also travels across far more varied and complex landscapes.
The spare pages of the book are rounded off with the usual cover gallery and a small selection of page roughs and concept art. While not ultimately necessary, it's always nice to have them and I prefer the inclusion of concept art over that of script samples, as they tend to show more interesting and varied under-construction prototypes (seen here in the changing design of Gene's weapons) than text which is already translated into the comic itself.
Up to now this review has appeared adulatory, if not absolutely fawning, and that's true - I honestly cannot settle on any real and lasting criticism of Kingdom. There are a couple of superficial continuity errors - Gene seems to chop and change between the Masters being the robots back at his home base and the humans he meets on his travels - and I probably would have extended the climax of The Promised Land for another instalment's worth of pages than it has currently, but they still work fine as they are now.
The storytelling in Kingdom is not bare and slow, it is elongated. Indeed, it's particularly well-suited to the graphic novel format; it's not an episodic tale and so being bound in a single book allows it to unroll as a continuous story rather than being a stop-start serial. Its sophistication is implicit within events rather than being doled out in exposition and soliloquies. Artfully understated throughout, Kingdom is certainly worthy of a princely coronet of one of the best Thrills in recent memory. Book III, Call of the Wild, will be appearing in the weekly in the next couple of months, and I look forward to it with eager anticipation. Gene ends each book, disappearing into the landscape, each time smaller than before - his simple animal certainity disappearing in the vastness of an alien world far beyond his canine ken. He's searching for a place to go, and a purpose to have. Wherever it is and whatever it may be, I hope that he finds it.
