3 Story

Alright, this time I mean it: after Hardware last week I’m done with superheroes for awhile. Now I’m back to another favorite theme, alienation! I like this theme because at some point everyone has experienced being alone or being different. But, what would happen if you never stopped being different. What if, in the grandest sense, you were always unique and always an outsider? That’s the question posed in 3 STORY: THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE GIANT MAN, written and drawn by Matt Kindt, published by Dark Horse.

3 Story is about Craig Pressgang, who has a condition that never allows hims him to stop growing. In fact, he grows a couple inches every year. When he’s younger he’s just the tallest kid in the class, but soon he’s taller than everyone. By the time he’s in college he’s a giant. The book asks the simple questions associated with being a giant, like: What do you do for a living? How do you fit in? And, most importantly, what do you do for love? What makes this story unique is that it’s told from the perspective of his mother, wife and daughter.

When I started reading 3 Story, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I certainly wasn’t prepared for the depth of emotion that Kindt stuffed into this book. By the time you get to page 10 you realize that this story isn’t going to have the happiest of endings, but you can’t stop reading. While Kindt answers the material questions like those regarding jobs and clothes, the book truly shines when the women in Craig’s life discuss how they interact with him.

Using the women to move the story forward was a great idea. As a reader, we’re never in Pressman’s head. He’s an outsider to the people in his world and he’s an outsider to us because we don’t hear his "voice." Each of the women — mother, wife & daughter — shows a different aspect of him as a person. His mother talks about his younger years, his wife discusses what it’s like to love a giant, and his daughter concludes the story. Kindt uses each woman to explore different facets of social alienation and loneliness. It’s incredibly moving and almost impossible to pull off if you aren’t a superior artist. 

Kindt’s art is simpler than your standard superhero fare, but it’s perfect for a story like this. The thing that amazed me the most was how well Kindt did maintaining perspective between the characters. Creating comic pages is never easy, but when one character is over 20 feet tall and the other is 5 feet tall it creates a whole new set of problems. Kindt uses a variety of camera angles and even page composition to keep the story moving. He also does a masterful job showing the emotions of each of the characters. Without out clean expression much of the story would have been lost.

In 3 Story, Kindt has created a sad yet moving book. It immediately drew me in, and I found that I cared for the characters almost immediately. I found that I didn’t want to put the book down because I wanted to know more about the people inside of it. If you’re tired of superheroes and are looking for a heartfelt story about people, then this is the book for you.

- David Lee