Having sold over 100,000 copies in France alone, popular European comic Mutafukaz has been lavishly reproduced and presented in English by Titan Comics. Created by French graphic artist ‘Run’, Mutafukaz focuses on the life of Angelino, living in one of the most dangerous cities in the world, Dark Meat City.
Prone to pollution, poverty and crime, Angelino’s home is unkind to those who live at the bottom. Making the best of what’s given to him, Angelino is living life as a pizza delivery boy whilst residing with his flame-headed buddy, Vinz. Suddenly, a bizarre accident turns Angelino’s life upside down. Now able to see the unseen horrors around him, Angelino and Vinz turn into the subject of a government investigation.
A wonderful concoction of B-movies, Mexican wrestling and American hip-hop culture, Mutafukaz is yet another unique publication from Titan Comics. Angelino and Vinz may not be the most original characters in this bizarre universe, but their dangerous endeavours from trouble make for an engaging little read.
Run’s style is highly-kinetic, and very similar to the work of popular Invader Zim artist Jhonen Vasquez. Whilst Run’s artwork is delightful to gaze upon, Mutafukaz really hits the mark with the black, red and white colour palette, which is unfortunately only used through a portion of this first volume. A tremendous clash of black and whites, Run does a fantastic job of utilising contrast.
Although Mutafukaz is an enjoyable read at first, the first volume just doesn’t have much of a hook to bring the reader in for the second volume. It almost feels like Run had a bizarre idea and ran with it, forgetting any essential antagonist for the two main characters. The adventure in the book feels quite random at times, without any clear structure to it.
Perhaps the first volume is solely establishing the characters first, but Angelino and Vinz aren’t very interesting characters themselves. Almost every single individual character in Mutafukaz has a great design to it, but they’re lacking substance. This shouldn’t occur with the main characters.
Still, there’s something to admire about how different Mutafukaz truly is compared to other comics. Run’s unconventional storytelling and characters may win a lot of readers over, and considering its success in France already, the upcoming volumes are sure to entertain. Whether or not Mutafukaz garners such praise remains to be seen, but here’s hoping future volumes expand greatly on Run’s distinctive and twisted universe.
MUTAFUKAZ: BOOK 1 / WRITER & ARTIST: RUN / PUBLISHER: TITAN COMICS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
