Sunday Comics: Wonton Soup

Wonton Soup (volume 1), by James Stokoe

Format: Volumed graphic novel series. 2 volumes available at time of this writing.

Content Rating: PG-13. A fair bit of language and Deacon's constant (but surprisingly not that explicit) references to all the sex he's having, but not much else for a parent to worry about leaving around their kid.

Plot: Where do I begin? The comic bills itself as a "Space Trucker Cooking Opera," and this designation is actually pretty accurate. Johnny Boyo, our hero, is a lowly space trucker...essentially a driver for an interplanetary freight service, along with his sleazy-but-still-likeable copilot and friend Deacon. (Boyo is one of the few human characters in the story...Deacon may be as well but seems open to interpretation.) But Johnny comes from quite the interesting background for a trucker--he used to be one of the finest students at one of the most famous cooking schools in the galaxy, before he dropped out. Now, it seems, he spends most of his off-time seeking out some of the best cuisine he can and doing amazing cooking for just himself...until he and Deacon end up forced to head to the planet where his cooking school is, as well as the girl he left behind there. In order to get off-world, Johnny might just have to whip out his chopping knives once more and show the new stars on the block what cooking's all about...

Thoughts: Oni Press is rapidly becoming one of my new favourite comics publishers (they already publish Wet Moon, one of my favourite volumed series ever). This comic is helping Oni's case.
I was familiar with Wonton Soup beforehand, so I was surprised (and pleased!) to see it had made the jump to an actual series. It began life, at least insofar as I'm familiar with it, as a short story entry in the second volume of Void Pulpo. (See the "Indie Comics Compilation Triple Play" entries for more on that volume as a whole.) It was definitely one of my favourite stories in that compilation, and in fact that short story returns here and functions as the very first chapter, with updated artwork (mostly zip-tones added, and a few subtly redrawn bits). The concepts for this story seem sporadic, like they shouldn't work, but like an exciting recipe, Mr. Stokoe manages to blend them together into a wholly unique and entertaining beast, combining elements of space operas like Star Wars and Firefly with large elements of Iron Chef and a definite influence from action-heavy anime and manga (especially in the grand finale cooking battle, where the contestants start busting out various secret cooking techniques...ha!). I had to read it all in one go...every time I reached the end of a chapter, I found myself automatically thinking "just one more chapter tonight," a very good sign to me. My only real complaint is the author's love for sticking all sorts of alien loanwords into the dialogue. I understand completely why they're there--we are dealing with a mind-bogglingly vast cultural melting pot (there are so many alien species around that you rarely see the same type twice), so it follows that a lot of names for people and ingredients would sound pretty odd, I think it's more the penchant for some of the words being ridiculously hard to pronounce. Which may be to add to the atmosphere to begin with. In either case, it does tone down a little towards the later chapters, and the comic wouldn't feel the same if it were completely absent. Takes me back to my childhood, actually, when you could name aliens whatever you liked. And that, ultimately, is the sort of raw creativity and spontanaeity that Wonton Soup is about celebrating. Congratulations on making it this far, James Stokoe. I look forward to more.

[Holden Out.]