by Matt KindtMatt Kindt's 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man is a real good graphic novel - it imagines what would really happen if a person were to grow to such a height that he is three stories tall, but still live in the real world. His story is set in the 60s, and follows the life story of Craig Pressgang.
That book came out a few years ago, but now Kindt has returned to this character for this one-shot comic, which actually collects three short stories that originally appeared on-line in the now defunct MySpace Dark Horse Presents web comic, and were also collected in the trade paperback editions that collected that early experiment with digital-only stories.
I was a little disappointed to discover that these stories were older, and that I'd already read one of them. At the same time, I love Kindt's work, and was happy to be able to read these three stories at the same time.
These tales show three different moments during Craig's 'world tour', which was designed as a tourist event, but also served as cover for Pressgang's employment by the CIA. None of these are 'spy stories' (a specialty of Kindt, whose Super Spy is a masterpiece of the genre), but instead just follow Craig through some rough times, like when he got appendicitis in Paris or a stomach ailment in Egypt. Both of those stories are very concerned with the mechanics of being his size, and that leads to some humour and some uncomfortable scenes.
The third story chronicles Craig's short-lived time working for the American army during the Vietnam War. It didn't go well.
At the back of this comic is a preview of Kindt's upcoming Dark Horse series Mind MGMT. As I intend to buy this comic, I didn't spoil any of it by reading this preview, but did like glancing at the pictures. Kindt is set to become a break-out creator in 2012 - he has the aforementioned Dark Horse series starting up, and is taking over the writing of Frankenstein Agent of SHADE for DC. He is definitely a comics creator who deserves a higher profile.
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