REVIEW: 'Monkey Meat' #1 by Juni Ba

 

MONKEY MEAT #1

Writer: Juni Ba

Artist: Juni Ba

Publisher: Image Comics

Release Date: January 5, 2022

Cover Price: $3.99

MINISERIES PREMIERE

DJELIYA creator JUNI BA introduces a new fantasy universe in this ANTHOLOGY SERIES! The Monkey Meat Company made its fortune selling cans of processed meat all around the world. Using that money to fuel their wacky experiments, they turned their native island into a magical hyper-capitalist hellscape where even demons have to pay rent! Follow the lives of the creatures of Monkey Meat Island in this fun, action-packed romp. Each issue is its own story!

Score:

★★★★☆ (4/5)

After the success of 'Djeliya,' creator Juni Ba is back with a vengeance for one of the wildest and most thought-provoking comics just days into the new year. 'Monkey Meat' #1 is a dystopian satire that roasts heartless capitalism in all its horrific glory. 

Ba introduces the Monkey Meat Company, its private island, its history, and one indentured servant in particular. The corporation bought the island to build its factory and basically colonized it using indigenous people to "clean" the island of other indigenous people. One such individual, described as a woodland creature known as Lug, was especially adept at doing the Company's bidding. The dangerous processing of meat and other experiments on the island led to the mutating of workers and subjects making Lug especially formidable. But even he learns that the Company's stake in him and his usefulness is for a lifetime and beyond. 

'Monkey Meat' is nothing like you've seen before. Ba's art is uniquely cartoonish and bold and boisterous. It comes with a passionate point of view that can't be missed and splattered all over the page from action and narration, Ba has something to say. The cold-blooded business tactics of a corporation have never been satirized so savagely and mercilessly as Ba does here. And the allegory extends to nations who colonized and exploited native people as well and that hits just as hard. 

The first issue of the anthology is a great set-up with a horrifying irredeemable corporation at its center. It's a story seemingly without a hero. Is it funny? Not necessarily. It has a sly wicked type of dark humor that is piercing but not the ha-ha type. The pages are an eye-full and extraordinary. It's this crazy mash-up of 'Fractured Fairy Tales,' 'Animal Farm,' and spiritually of Genndy Tartakovsky. Ba pours his soul on the page and you can feel the urgency. 

'Monkey Meat' #1 is Juni Ba's imaginative manifesto about the horrors of capitalism and colonization told in the most vibrant and cutting way. It's a fever dream of passionate storytelling that can't be ignored. 'Monkey Meat' comes at you fast and is unrelenting so don't miss this first issue.