A teen must face her fears in increasingly dangerous ways when horrible giants threaten to destroy her small town.
I Kill Giants
Written by Joe Kelly
Art & Design by JM Ken Niimura
Image Comics
If you’ve yet to read I Kill Giants, get on that and then circle back. There be spoilers in these hills.
A 5th grade girl named Barbara Thorson carries two secrets. One is a hammer capable of toppling giants. The other is
something far worse.
There’s something wrong upstairs.
It’s clear to readers, quite early, that there’s something wrong with Barbara’s household. Something upstairs. In short
order we come to suspect that Mrs. Thorson is dying. Kelly and Niimura show their hand before the halfway point, but this
seemingly premature revelation does nothing to take away from the narrative. It’s not her mother’s death or even the
moment of Babs’ catharsis that makes the book. Mrs. Thorson’s demise is a foregone conclusion, so the real suspense
lies in Barbara herself. Will she get through this? We’ve seen protagonists battle the pain of loss many times before,
usually in memoirs. In this story, our hero is a fictional character living through the tragedy rather than recalling it
from a safe perspective.
