Friday, November 5, 2010

Darby



The debut that Ken Foo deserves.

Of course, Ken has done lots of other shit before this.

There's Dragon Glade from 2005 that Ken would rather have all copies burnt. But I'm holding on to my copy.

There're the mini comics he printed for the 1st STCC in 2008, which were compiled in Freedom Love Forever.

The story he did for Liquid City Vol 1, which was also compiled in Freedom Love Forever.

Freedom Love Forever.
http://kenfoo.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/freedom-love-forever-2/

And The Diary of Date King drawn by Ken and written by Adrian Teo. (publisher of Freedom Love Forever and the first 2 volumes of Troy Chin's The Resident Tourist)
http://kenfoo.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/the-diary-of-date-king/

And now, Little Disturbed Darby and the Melancholy Monsters, a hc b&w children's book that is actually not meant for children. Parents should unwrap this to check the content before buying it for their kids. Nightmares guaranteed.

But in reality, fairy tales are dark. Hansel and Gretel pushing that nice old lady into the oven? C'mon.

The first half of Darby reads like your typical too clever by half children's book - everything nice and jolly. The second half is classic Ken Foo, which is sick, sick, SICK.

But I take that back. It's actually sad, sad, SAD. It's true that at our core we are truly utterly alone. Maybe it's not something we want to tell our kids now, but sooner or later they will learn this. Our lives are mundane.

Ken always wanted to do a children's book, although he has not read many to form any preconceived notions of how/what a children's books should be. So this is unadulterated Ken Foo. Written/drawn/self-published.

Only 500 copies printed. Go get.

http://kenfoo.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/little-disturbed-darby-the-melancholy-monsters/

Ken will be at Prologue/ION on 6 Nov 2010, 2 pm. He needs your hug.

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