Wonton Soup
If I had my way, I would’ve talked about this series when I did my podcast on James Stokoe last year. Fortunately Oni Press has decided to reprint his two-volume sci-fi space foodie series in a nice one-volume omnibus. Johnny Boyo is a space trucker travelling the spacelanes of the Milky Way with his pal Deacon. While Deac’s interests run towards intergalactic poontang, Johnny’s a chef who thrives on the culinary challenge of cooking and eating the most dangerous dishes out there. It’s what led him to leave his cooking academy and girlfriend, so it’s only natural that we see him returning to them to settle unfinished business. This is what drives the plot of the first volume, and it’s an excellent showcase for Stokoe’s worldbuilding skills. Seeing Johnny meticulously prepare to cook a meal with Cxl Spice — made up of a hive-mind of organisms who live to be eaten in a delicious meal — is just one great example of the writer/artist’s talents here. Though the beats of the story are pretty familiar, and his art lacks the intricate level of detail present in his latter-day work, it’s still a great window into an entertainingly weird universe.
As for the second volume, it’s… somewhat unfocused compared to the first. I imagine that’s mainly because Stokoe couldn’t lay off the Mary Jane while he was putting it together. Why do I think that? Well, the story starts off with Johnny and Deac smoking some weed made from the brains of an alien merchant race that allows the smoker to experience years of the aliens’ life in the process. Our protagonists, being the loveable knuckleheads they are, smoke way too much, have an awful trip, and crash-land on a nearby planet. In their effort to become spacebound again, we learn of Deac’s history with the Sex Bear, witness a rebellion taking place within Johnny’s stomach lining, meet up with a hundred clones of a one-eyed tentacled alien pirate, and fight off a giant beast using their industrial-sized cooking utensils. If you can buy into this insanity, you’ll have no trouble appreciating Stokoe’s demented brand of creativity on display here. Those of you who can’t will probably be better off just re-reading the first half again. All in all, I thought this was a fun trip into the history of one of my favorite writer/artists and it makes a nice stopgap while I await whatever his next major work will be.