It may not be immediately obvious but at the heart of every fantastical tale, if its told well, of course, sits a vibrantly humanistic core.
This is certainly the case in the King of Nowhere written by W. Maxwell Prince (Ice Cream Man) with artwork by Tyler Jenkins (Grass Kings, Black Badge), the tale of Denis, an alcoholic used to waking up in strange and awful places, and who desperately wishes he didn’t, who finds himself coming to at the edge of the road just outside a highly unusual small town in California.
Now, all small towns are to some extent, unusual, quirky and possessed of a distinct sensibility and personality but Nowhere is a place apart entirely, with its inhabitants unlike anything anyone, including Denis, has seen before.
As he walks into town, he is greeted by a deer-man, all antlers, talk of “newbies” and concern for the welfare of Denis, a person so unusual that he must be the product of some sort of fevered hangover dream.
That’s the only rational explanation, right?
Well, rationally, yes, that is the only possibly way to make sense of that strange encounter and so when Denis reaches town and walks into the bar, because of course he does, and he sees a menagerie of weird and wonderful homo sapien-esque creatures, some with horns or wings or a bartender with an upside down (or is his face the right way up and everyone else is the wrong way round?), he clings tightly to the idea that he must be nocturnally hallucinating the hell out of reality, right now.
But he’s not as it turns out, and when he decides to defend fellow fish-faced alcoholic Ed from a multi-armed man who accuses him of wronging him, he discovers that Nowhere, in all its mysteriously ordinary glory is anything but a dream and very, very real.
Nowhere, it turns out, may look fantastical but it is, at its heart, intrinsically and immutably human.
Something has happened to very ordinary people in a comfortingly mundane town to turn them into freak show exhibits and while it might seem like something out of a drug-tripping Alice in Wonderland-type journey into the weirdly off-kilter subconscious to Denis at first, he soon discovers how very human the town’s inhabitants actually are.
They are loved, they have friends, they have much-loved and value routines and their lives, however odd they may look, are not that different to anyone else in the United States.
Quite what has happened to them becomes the subject of a slow-burning but thrilling narrative which explores, among other things, how far certain unethical, deeply immoral people will go to see what happens when they play god with others.
It may seem like a game to the shadowy figures who slowly emerge into the light as the story progresses, but it is real life to the people of Nowhere, and increasingly to Denis, who comes to understand just how much like him, and better than him in many respects, they actually are.
It is this strong humanistic thread that grants the fantastical elements of King of Nowhere a real sense of groundedness and authenticity, enhanced by Prince’s gift for realising and giving vibrant life to characters who are like anyone else in the world – they just look different.
While not a polemic on looking beyond surface differences or trying to find common bonds of humanity with people who look utterly divergent to us, King of Nowhere does have some important things to say about a host of societal ills.
As this compellingly immersive story moves along with a beautifully balanced mix of heartbreakingly thrilling action and an intimate empathy for the vagaries and contradictions of the human condition – why, for instance, Denis wonders, does he always the worst of options when all he wants is the very best liking being with his partner and their baby? (though there is a question over if they are real) – King of Nowhere explores the nature of addiction, mental illness, the lack of ethical controls over industry and science, the vulnerability of ordinary people to forces far stronger than them, and our innate prejudice against anything that doesn’t fit with our experience or expectations.
That’s a lot to look at in what is a five-episode story but Prince manages it with aplomb, augmented spectacularly by artwork so luminously colourful and evocative that it feels like watercolour paintings, albeit very weird and certainly not pastoral ones, sprung to life before you.
Jenkins makes the highly unusual and strange world of Nowhere come brilliantly alive in all its gloriously illogical absurdity while zeroing right in on the innate humanity of some harrowing and emotionally shattering moments.
King of Nowhere is the perfect synthesis of writing and art, and as you delve ever deeper into its seemingly twisted world, you realise again and again that the people of this misbegotten town simply want what we all want – to be happy, safe, loved and secure and to be safeguarded against anything that might threaten that.
It’s a story that might feel strange and unnatural but it is actually deeply close to what we all crave and Prince has delivered up an arrestingly original, heartfelt tale that might live in the mysteries and the enigmas and the weirdness but is actually far more human that you might initially suspect.
