Review: CODE MONKEY SAVE WORLD #1

CODE MONKEY SAVE WORLD #1
Written by Greg Pak
Art by Takeshi Miyazawa
Release Date: October 16, 2013

CodeMonkeySaveWorldBefore you pick up Code Monkey Save World, you should know that it’s a rather juvenile title, in the best possible sense. It’s clever, and willing to accept each of its ideas on its own terms without taking anything too terribly seriously. It’s an office comedy, space opera, and paranoid conspiracy all wrapped up into one. There are nods to Japanese manga, Dial M for Monkey from the old Dexter’s Laboratory cartoon, and maybe even My Little Pony? Billy Corgan’s bald, whiny, malevolence? Mark Millar’s Wanted? The forced labor resort from Futurama? The fact that The X-Files used to shoot in Vancouver?

It’s a madcap world where everything is fair game, and one of the few times in recent memory where I found myself genuinely surprised by some of the plot twists (and the way that the story effortlessly incorporates each twist into its own evolving internal logic).

Code Monkey Save World starts with a spiky-haired monkey named Charles who doesn’t quite talk like everyone else slogging his way through his day as a web programmer under a terrible boss in a nondescript office in Tucson. There’s a lovely co-worker who rather suddenly finds herself in danger, and the rest is probably better if you read it for yourself. I’m not sure I could totally explain it anyway. (That’s meant to be a compliment.)

Describing the genesis of Code Monkey can make the whole thing sound like a bit of an in-joke — a Twitter exchange between Greg Pak and musician Jonathan Coulton (perhaps best known for the song “Still Alive” from the video game Portal) led to a Kickstarter-funded graphic novel, which is now being distributed as a four issue miniseries by Monkeybrain Comics and ComiXology. The finished product, however is professional, polished, entirely accessible, and still unique in the way that only a passion project can be. Pak seems right at home in Coulton’s imaginative world, the comic timing is impeccable, and the little jokes Takeshi Miyazawa sprinkles into his frenetic and yet astonishingly detailed art are worth a second read on their own.

I’m pleased to say that I don’t have any idea where Code Monkey Save World is going. But let me grab a blaster, brush up on my HTML, and throw on some Jonathan Coulton songs for clues, and I’m right there for the ride.

Verdict: 9.5/10

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