Comics Review: "Knock Off Wars"

- by Señor Editor, 12 March 2017

If I had a time machine, I’d go back to the early ‘90s and kick myself in the balls before I could throw out the knock-off action figures I used to fill out Skeletor’s crew with. The popularity of bootleg toy collecting was something I never saw coming, but nowadays it’s a well-established hobby. If it has a body like He-Man and a head that could come from any well-known ‘80s or ‘90s franchise, chances are it’s a sought after collector’s item. And that’s great, but one thing that still separated the members of Turly Gang or Troll Fighters from their “legit” MOTU or TMNT brothers was the lack of a tie-in cartoon or… a comic. Until now.

The cover. Click to enlarge!

Luke Toywalker has been championing bootleg and knock off toys on the internet for quite some time now (look no further than the Knock-Off Collectors fanpage, or the very awesome Goodleg Toys), but this time he took it upon himself to create a proper lore for them. Joining Toywalker is Polish artist Łukasz Kowalczuk (Vreckess Vrestlers, SLIME, Violent Skate Bulldogs), responsible for making everything look as rad as possible.

“Knock Off Wars” is basically a one-shot telling the story of the turtle-headed (Turly-headed?) Primor, leader of the Turly Clan, on his journey through various strange lands, with one task in mind – reaching the mysterious Monster Castle and saving the world from complete destruction. Along the way he meets many new friends and engages in brutal battles with the forces of evil.

The story will seem very basic to the casual reader, but I suspect knock-off aficionados will get quite a lot more out of it. There are many references sprinkled throughout and, while I did catch some of them (“Sungold Valley”, the various toy lines some of the characters could come from, etc.), I think there may be many more Easter eggs that hardcore fans will be happy to discover. But even if you don’t get the references, you still get a very entertaining story out of it.

Without spoiling too much, I gotta say Toywalker also comes up with quite an elegant way to incorporate the very idea of what these toys are into the story, but that's something you'll have to discover on your own.

Primor, the Turly Clan leader, chops a head off.

Kowalczuk’s art style is the perfect fit for this story – if you’re familiar with his past works, you will know that he’s more than capable of drawing muscular weird creatures beating the living shit out of each other. He does it with flair, while making sure all the characters remain “on model” to their plastic equivalents. The fight scenes are also looking great, very dynamic and surprisingly gory - when the Knock Offs are fighting they make the Masters of the Universe battles look like child’s play.

What I love the most, though, are the full-page drawings that open every chapter of the book, showing somebody watching this story on tv, in a room jam-packed with action figures, consoles, posters, VHS and various other nostalgia items. These are just fantastic – see for yourself and check out the one we have on the right. If I’m not mistaken, it appears the person watching “Knock Off Wars” on TV is doing it over many years, as the various items change to reflect the eras they’re from. These pages are really fun to look at.

Overall, “Knock Off Wars” is most certainly a niche comicbook, but the people it’s made for should be ecstatic about it. It’s a great looking book, with a solid story that pays a real nice tribute to the rich history of knock off toys. That’s not to say the casual readers won’t get anything out of it. This amount of weirdness should appeal to many people who never owned a ripped He-Man lookalike with a “turly” face in their lives (never too late for that, though – there are ads at the back of the comic!). 

One of the pages that open each chapter. It'll go big when you click it, Junior!

The print run is limited to 200 copies, so get them while you still can!


...and if they run out of print copies, you can also pick up a digital version on the publisher's website, in the Underworld Muscle store. Check it out, and let us know what you think!

Tagged: comics, collectibles & merch, Reviews.

blog comments powered by Disqus

---

Follow @TrashMutant