What a joy of a read the 6 Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton (Volume 1) by Kyle Starks and Chris Schweizer is!
Possessed of snappy, hilarious, insightful writing, memorable characters all brilliantly well-realised and a plot that is manic, over-the-top and pure comedy gold laced with some very real pain and hurt, the 6 Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton has everything you could possibly want in a graphic novel.
Throw in visually striking artwork, which is fun to look at while evoking a captivating sense of time and place, and entire sections given over to fictional TV shows that feel like something you actually have watched at some stage, and you have a superlative piece of storytelling that grabs on the first page and doesn’t let you go until the hilariously intense, action-filled closing pages.
Both Kyle Starks who penned the six episodes compiled in this trade paper edition, and Chris Schweizer who gifted us with eye-pleasingly catchy visuals are Eisner Awards nominees and it clear why this is on every single damn page.
For a start, we have a delicious premise that all but demands you read it because who doesn’t love Murder, She Wrote meets Agatha Christie on trippily comedic mission to find the truth.
“The world’s most unlikable action star has been found dead, and his previous TV sidekicks are looking to solve the mystery. But how can you catch a murderer when almost everyone hates the victim? Now, these sidekicks are going to learn what it means to be the stars of the show—that is, if any of them survive the STUNTMAN WAR!” (courtesy Image Comics)
Just how unlikeable is Trigger Keaton?
Immensely, odiously, repugnantly, compellingly so; think of the most misogynistic, rude, nasty, cruelly unthinking, morally depraved person you know and multiply that picture of execrable humanity a billion times or so, and you have a star so terrible it’s a wonder everyone didn’t kill him.
Which makes the investigation by one of Keaton’s discarded sidekicks, Miles Nguyen, who somehow ended up running unpaid errands for the man instead of pursuing the actor career Keaton tried very hard to end, all the more audacious.
How on earth do you find out who killed a man so utterly awful that this was a figurative queue down the block and then some to seek revenge on him?
Pretty much everyone from stuntmen – Keaton took delight in actually hurting these people, arguing with his usual blustery nastiness, that real acting demanded it (it didn’t) – to the sidekicks of the title to the management of the studio to which the actor was contracted like a spreading cancer would’ve been happy to see him dead, buried and gone.
But, of course, only one of them did it, and the great fun of the 6 Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton (Volume 1) is watching the eponymous sidekicks Nguyen, Paul Hernandez, Terry Kimodo (how he assumed his name is very very funny), Tad Haycroft, Richard Branigan and Allison Sainte-Marie get deep into investigative mode when, really, all they care about is that the man is dead.
Very, very eternally DEAD.
At first, it’s only Nguyen, a decent guy with movie star good looks and a heart of gold and pure honesty that really wants to get at the truth.
But as the story moves fight-heavy on – the brilliance of Schweizer’s artwork is that he manages to draw both feisty, funny fisticuffs and characters who exhibit a wide range of silly and meaningful emotions – the other characters, who don’t know each other much before this, end up as this Keaton-discarded family of sorts, drawing together to discover the truth between the loathed actor’s death while also reassessing their lives and what it is they really want from their careers.
It’s this vibrant mix of inspired comic silliness and real, touching emotional journeys that makes the 6 Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton (Volume 1) come so riotously, wonderfully alive and which makes it such a treat to read.
In one frame you will surrounded by slapstick-level fighting and quips flying at the same rate at Allison’s skilled martial arts fighting, and then the next someone like Hernandez will be ruminating on his lack of career progress and the way in which Keaton all but destroyed his life.
Somehow, and that’s the magic here, Starks makes it all come together in one enjoyably cohesive whole, deftly balancing absurdity and vivacious humour with some deep dives into the dark, troubling realities of the American entertainment industry where toxicity is rewarded and mollified if it brings in the big bucks and stellar ratings.
That there’s a lot of rot sitting behind the gloss and glamour will surprise no one thanks to the damning exposes of movements like #MeToo but it’s the way in which Starks, his writing brought vigourously even more alive by Schweizer’s perfectly-judged artwork, manages to bring that all out while executing on a manically hilarious murder mystery that is worthy of so much admiration and praise.
6 Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton (Volume 1) is in many ways a masterclass in how to tell a thoughtfully poignant story within a wider frenetically funny one, keeping the heart very much on the sleeve while letting lose with jokes so inspired and comic moments so laugh-out-loud funny – the scene where they all attend the reading of a very unusual will is a standout in a story full of them – and while you will have a tremendous of fun watching these delightfully flawed souls trying to get to the truth of Keaton’s death and their own disappointing lives, you will also be strangely touched too as sleuthing gives way to existential pondering with this heady brew eventually giving way to an ending so perfect you have to hope that this wacky but sweetly found-family gang get to do it all over again … and soon.
