WRITER: DANIEL BARNES | ARTIST: D.J. KIRKLAND| PUBLISHER: ONI PRESS | FORMAT: SINGLE ISSUE | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

We never expected to see the cute Millennial cartoon character Aggretsuko come to comic books, but we are sure glad it has! Of all of the Hello Kitty adjacent characters, Aggretsuko is one of the more relatable and amusing. Retsuko is an adorable red panda who works in the big city and has to deal with all the frustrations and difficulties of holding down a nine-to-five job. When the petty frustrations of the mundane working world become too much, she takes to karaoke. Her music of choice is Death Metal, and she becomes Aggretsuko (literally Aggressive Retsuko). This usually doesn’t fix things, but it does make them funnier.

The character started out as a cartoon series on Netflix, aimed at young working professionals. Given that the core gag is ‘cute fox does Death Metal’, you’d have thought that this would be difficult to translate to a comic book format, as comics rarely come with their own built-in soundtrack. So how do you make something like this appropriately Death Metal? Mostly by taking the cute little fox, ramming one’s tongue firmly in one’s cheek and going a little darker. The first issue of Aggretsuko cheerfully dips into the realms of horror, while having a firm pop at office culture. Specifically presenteeism and over-working. (If you have an office colleague who’s always bringing their children’s flu to the office, get them this book.)

Kirkland and Stern capture the comic stylings of the Hello Kitty-esque world perfectly. They bring us into the brightly coloured world of cutesy talking animals while at the same time reminding us that these poor beasties work a dull daily grind job. Which perfectly captures the show. Writer Daniel Barnes gets the mix between office drama and surreal fantasy perfectly balanced and the dialogue is appropriately silly. Lots of super cute fun!