Cuphead is actual proof of how bad my memory is. Whenever I haven’t played the game for a while, a thought will suddenly pop into my mind telling me I should give it a spin. ~Every time I give into that said thought, I remember why I stopped playing in the first place. Never has there been a game that I’ve so enjoyed while also being filled to the absolute brim with raw anger and frustration – you can probably relate?
That’s where the Cuphead comics come into the picture. For once, I can sit back and take in everything about Cuphead that I love, from the art to the humour, but without wanting to murder everything in my vicinity viciously.
Written for Dark Horse Comics (Resident Alien; The Witcher; Vox Machina) by Zack Keller (Batman: The Telltale Series; The Walking Dead: Michonne; Dick Figures) and with art by Shawn Dickinson (Inks, Drinks, and Catfinks!: the Custom Cartoon Art of Shawn Dickinson) comes a comic book adaption you never thought would work, but 100% does, Cuphead.
The Cuphead comics take the two beloved characters from the game, Cuphead and Mugman and imagines them on countless short, yet thrilling adventures through Inkwell Isles. Each story is an original tale and sees the world and characters from the game come to life once more.
The comics are filled with the same charming vintage art that made Cuphead a stand-out success and throws in some of the game’s signature humour to tie everything together. The artwork is gorgeous, and it perfectly encapsulates what I imagine funny pages from the 1930s look like. All in all, the whole experience is a delight that anyone, regardless of age or prior knowledge of the game, can enjoy, even if it’s on the shorter side.
Last weekend I sat and read through all the Cuphead comics that there are, and honestly, it was as good as I jumped into the Delorean and travelled back to my childhood when I fell in love with comics. I can still remember clear as day when my love for comics started, the day my dad game my very first Archie Digest.
Archie Digests consisted of lots of short, one-shot Archie stories. None of them ever built on to each other, and you didn’t need to read the digest in order. It was just a collection of short, funny stories that would have me giggling from start to finish.
The Cuphead comics encapsulate that feeling exactly. Each TP contains a wild and wacky collection of one-shot stories, all set within the games universe. Bringing a video game word to a comic might not sound like a recipe for success, but in the case of Cuphead, it works so well that at times it’s hard to remember it was ever a game at all.
If you enjoyed the Cuphead game, or even if you didn’t, now is the perfect time to pick up the comics and prepare yourself for the 30th of June when The Cuphead Show premiers on Netflix.
If you want to grab yourself a physical copy of Cuphead, remember to head over to Critters and Comics or click here. Cuphead is currently available as two TPs, Volume 1: Comic Capers & Curios and Volume 2: Cartoon Chronicles and Calamities. If you have no idea what any of that means, but you’d like to, click here.