Kane
Kane is a character-driven comic book series created by Paul Grist, first published in the UK from 1993 to 2001. The narrative follows Detective Kane as he navigates the complexities of crime-fighting in a gritty urban landscape known as New Eden, which serves as a darker take on the concept of paradise. After a six-month suspension for the death of his corrupt partner, Kane returns to work alongside his new partner, Kate Felix. The series employs a unique storytelling approach, often utilizing flashbacks that enrich character backstories and contribute to various subplots.
The central themes explore moral ambiguity, the duality of good versus evil, and the challenges faced by law enforcement in a flawed system. Grist's artistic style is marked by a simple yet evocative cartoon aesthetic, blending dark atmospheres and minimal dialogue to convey tension and drama. Throughout its run, Kane has garnered a devoted fan base, showcasing the potential of self-published comics while maintaining a relatively low profile in the broader comics community. The series, known for its humor and literary references, invites readers to reflect on the nature of humanity and the complexities of the human condition within the framework of a detective story.
Kane
AUTHOR: Grist, Paul
ARTIST: Paul Grist (illustrator)
PUBLISHER: Dancing Elephant Press; Image Comics
FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1993-2001
FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 2004-2006
Publication History
The Kane series was first published in the United Kingdom by Dancing Elephant Press. The company, founded by Kane creator Paul Grist, printed all thirty-one issues of the series from 1993 to 2001. These issues were later collected in six volumes, published by Image Comics between 2004 and 2006, apart from issue 30, which has yet to be reprinted.
Plot
Kane is seen as a mainly character-driven series, but has several story lines that contribute to the plot. Grist relies heavily on the flashback convention, which leads to several subplots, furthers the story line, and lends detail to the plot with a noir-meets-pulp-fiction pace.
When the series begins, Detective Kane is returning to work after serving a six-month suspension for killing his partner, a crooked cop entangled with crime-syndicate leader Oscar Darke. As Kane’s new partner, Kate Felix, is put into action, her backstory is introduced, leading into several memory sequences for both main characters.
A series of bombings victimizes local delivery and taxi-cab outfits. When the suspected terrorist is taken in for interrogation and proves recalcitrant, Kane pulls his gun on the man to get him to talk. Kane and Kate seek the real bomber, Fogle, who has a terminal illness and therefore has nothing to lose; he intends to take Kane with him with one last blast. After he is overpowered, arrested, and escorted out of Silver Stone House, Fogle is ambushed by a sniper who shoots and kills him. Kate then goes undercover as Oscar Darke’s waitress at the Garden Restaurant, while several others surveil from a van outside. As the cops prepare to trap Darke, a quirky thug calling himself the Plunderer sweeps the dining area for anything he can rob, compromising the sting.
Later, Mr. Floppsie Whoppsie, a man dressed as a giant pink bunny, is seen on the lam, running with arms akimbo from the cops in an all-action, no-words hot pursuit. He is eventually caught and arrested. Back at the precinct, plans are in play to deal with Darke’s extortion racket, which is housed in the defunct Core Club, a former strip club. Wratz, of Internal Affairs, questions Detective Kane, Officer Perez, and others. Mr. Floppsie Whoppsie agrees to a deal to help set up Darke, but as he delivers the cash, one of Darke’s goons interrupts the process, smashing through a two-way mirror, grabbing the rabbit man, and running. Kate and company are on the scene, and after a Batman-style fistfight and shoot-out, the setup is revealed and Darke’s right-hand men are taken into custody.
When Kane’s probationary period ends, he is charged with protecting Oscar Darke, whose life has been threatened. As Darke’s history is revealed, Kane and Kate must find whoever attempted to kill him. Next, the histories of others at the Thirty-Ninth Precinct are also revealed, and Kane and Kate must contend with the cocky and dangerous Rico Costas, who is hunted, tracked, and finally shot and killed at the precinct. The lisping Fwankie poses the next threat; then the Blind Man, a sightless person-turned-hit man who uses his acute hearing to stalk his potential prey, nabs Kane. Unable to locate Kane, Kate is compelled to consult with Oscar Darke, who will surely be able to help.
Volumes
•Kane:Greetings from New Eden (2004). Collects issues 1-4. Introduces Kane, his backstory, the precinct, select colleagues and superiors, and Grist’s particularly mordant brand of humor.
•Kane:Rabbit Hunt (2004). Collects issues 5-8. Features Mr. Floppsie Whoppsie, the egocentric street performer dressed as a giant pink bunny; the archetypal “goodfella” types James “Jimmy-Fix-It” Obe, loan shark Louis Gordo, and their double-fisted fighting goons; and the television superheroes Mega Man and his sidekick, as well as Mark Morris, who is under the delusion that he is Mega Man.
•Kane: Histories (2004). Collects issues 9-12. Explores Oscar Darke’s character, past, and portended future, the latter of which runs parallel to the fate plotted for Detective Kane; meanwhile, Kane and his new partner, Kate Felix, are called on to protect his archnemesis.
•Kane:Thirty-Ninth (2005). Collects issues 13-18. Features Kate Felix’s backstory, plus a look at the underpinnings of the Thirty-Ninth Precinct by way of several conventions, including a point-of-view story told from the backseat of the patrol car of officers Miguel Perez and Steve Donahue.
•Kane:The Untouchable Rico Costas and Other Short Stories (2005). Collects issues 19-23. Features an assassin called the Blind Man, a monkey giving chase, and an arsonist on the loose.
•Kane: Partners (2006). Collects issues 24-29 and 31. Uses continued flashbacks to spotlight Kate’s and Kane’s stories from before they became cops.
Characters
•Kane, the eponymous protagonist, is depicted as a man of great size and presence. A good cop and detective who gives himself to the job wholeheartedly, he must confront the disdain of his colleagues, who misinterpret his shooting and killing of his previous partner, Dennis Harvey.
•Oscar Darke, foil to Kane, is the head of a crime syndicate. A stone-faced powerhouse portrayed as a broad-shouldered body double of Kane, he is a dangerous player with deep pockets and a thick Southern, possibly Cajun, accent.
•Kate Felix, Kane’s new partner, is a tendentious twentysomething detective with a perky face and bobbed hair. She has policing in her blood, having spent numerous childhood hours at the precinct where her father and uncle were cops.
•Captain John Dexter, the head of the Thirty-Ninth Precinct, is an archetypal officer and boss, one who is both sentimental and contradictory in a human yet humorous way.
•Detective Jimmy Lovett is a colleague of Kane and Kate and a successful crime fighter. However, he is an implicitly passive-aggressive figure with a disdain for all things Kane-related.
Artistic Style
With little character development and a simple cartoon style that includes generous amounts of black atmosphere and an economy of dialogue, Kane delivers, not a thin comic style, but one with much to be revealed. Grist combines discernible imagery and simple lines to give the comic a seedy, gritty reality. The text is in bubbles and is crisp uppercase; logos and emblems on storefronts and products are made just a point or two different to distinguish branding. The panels are montaged, overlapping from left to right, with only a bit of white space to spotlight dialogue, expressions, and actions against generously blacked-out backgrounds; a bush, for example, is inked entirely in black, save for a minimal amount of white lines required to distinguish its flowers. Grist reserves white space for the single spotlight against the wall of darkness that is a police officer’s uniform; the rescued infant in contrast to the brawny rescuer; the subtle facial expression visible behind the wide shadow cast across a face; or the hair of a nightclub singer, softened to the point of allure against a contrasting neckline and earlobe.
One distinguishing feature of Grist’s work in the Kane series is his violation of borders: He denies them, negates them by presenting images without them, and defies them by including elements that overlap or stick out from and beyond their limits. Single panels are devoted to single comments, moments, or events, and a character’s size is changed to illustrate the degree of intensity or action or the extent of his or her power and clout. For example, Kane might be depicted in a single, full-page panel, his silence as potent as his proportionately huge outstretched hand; or Kane’s burdens as the protagonist will show up in his broad back and shoulders, an expanse that fills the page and commands the reader’s attention.
Thought bubbles, emanata, and other traditional elements are used sparingly, generally to maintain a sense of mystery and danger. At the same time, there is a considerable amount of overheard, sideline, and other talk, framed outside in thin squares, to demonstrate the volume of activity taking place around the characters.
Themes
Several general themes run throughout Kane. The text comments on humanity’s struggles in a gritty, urban environment, particularly in the police and detective milieu. One theme that pertains to the detective genre is that of the hunter and the hunted. Dualities, such as light versus dark and good versus evil, prevail in New Eden, a tongue-in-cheek antithesis to the biblical Eden. Good cops fight bad guys, but, in another dichotomy, Kane is juxtaposed with his colleagues, who question his motivations for killing his previous partner, Harvey. Kane is emblematic of a good, honest crime fighter who also has a dark side. There are some similarities between Kane and his foil, Oscar Darke, which challenge the binary constructs of good and evil and question the integrity of the police profession in its entirety.
Perhaps more remarkable is Grist’s intertextual inclusion of a passel of literary allusions, postmodern references, and other reflections that highlight humanity, human nature, and the modern human condition. He pays respectful homage to Western popular culture with lines of dialogue that recall Lewis Carroll and Dylan Thomas, while the television crime fighters Mega Man and his sidekick simulate Bob Kane’s iconic superhero, Batman.
As is his signature, Grist makes most of his references in context, with the biting, stunning, sometimes seething humor that informs and defines the series. Whether it is with the cheeky “Sesame Safe” television commercial posited as a postmodern reflection of the social intrusiveness of advertisement or with the small-time crook who, while robbing restaurant patrons, comes to Oscar Darke’s table and gushingly asks for his autograph, Grist’s humor is as potent in entertainment value as it is as social commentary.
Impact
Grist’s Kane series combines subtle intertextuality with humor. Reportedly influenced by Frank Miller’s Sin City (1991-2000) and Dave Sim’s Cerebus (1977-2004), Kane has come to demonstrate that self-published comics can thrive. A respectable fan base attests to the entertainment value of Kane, as well as of several of Grist’s other works, such as the Jack Staff collection (2000- ). Despite this, Grist remains relatively obscure and is considered by graphic novel aficionados to be one of the best-kept secrets of the comics world.
Further Reading
Brubaker, Ed, and Sean Phillips. Criminal (2006- ).
Lapham, David. Stray Bullets (1995-2005).
Miller, Frank. Sin City (1991-2000).
Bibliography
Salaman, Jeff. “The Kane Mutiny: Paul Grist Rewrites the Detective Story with Kane.” Spin, July, 1997, 46.
Spurgeon, Tom. “Kane #20.” The Comics Journal 206 (April, 1988): 36-37.