Review - Kaput and Zosky by Lewis Trondheim
Kaput and Zosky are aliens of the worst kind, with only three things on their minds — killing, killing and killing. Aside from that fixation, their only real goal is to dominate a world — any world — and their only real preference is to do so in the most violent, painful, awful way possible. If this doesn’t sound like it’s necessarily cheery fodder for a kid’s comic, in the hands of French cartoonist Lewis Trondheim, it’s entirely the domain of children. In fact, Kaput and Zosky might speak most vividly to kids, who will perhaps find humor in the pair’s sub-childish behavior. Really, these two could make a reader of any young age definitely feel like the mature one in the relationship.
Their lot in life is to wander around the universe, happen upon a planet that they are certain they can conquer and then be foiled in some way, usually having to do with the fact that they’re nowhere near as vicious as they pass themselves off as. In fact, they aren’t very bright and, as Trondheim illustrates again and again, brains are preferable to brawn in the game of war. It’s a lesson that countries have learned and forgotten over and over again — it’s no wonder two dim-witted aliens with itchy fingers on their laser guns are behind in that area of study.
If all this bloodlust seems a bit much for a kid’s comic, it’s a good idea to look at the philosophy behind it. It’s very well-stated in this comment from Kaput in one of the last stories in the book: “For me, there’s no paradise without misery.” That’s a profound statement for a slapstick comic about two aliens. You could line up artists and scientists and philosophers and many would agree that pain is the great universal constant. Everything in the universe is born of some sort of violence and survival is condition result from conflict and blood. All Kaput is stating is the truth — there is no other life but the one where dog eats dog. Rather than rising above it, he and Zosky have given into it.
This idea is accentuated in “The Cosmonaut,” a series of silent one-pagers that follows the adventures of an earthling in outer space. The gag is always the same — it always revolves around the quaint idea that the man is on a voyage of discovery in the universe but with each wonder he encounters, he kills it. This is almost always countered with the punchline that he is going to be killed by an alien on the same journey.
This makes Trondheim’s work both exalted and wacky. As with all good comedy, he takes something dark and uses it for laughs — in doing so, he creates a common ground between kid and adult. Either could read and crack up at this stuff, because it’s just too funny. For a kid, Trondheim’s universal view will be a peak at the horrible realizations of being a grown-up and the call to not let it overwhelm you — for a parent, the same outlook will cause a chuckle, thanks to the understanding that amidst all the horribleness, you’ve got to laugh.
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