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Hip Flask: Concrete Jungle by Starkings, Casey and Laorönn
02/02/2008 . Source: Paul Skevington 
pub: Image/ComicCraft. 96 page hardback graphic novel. Price: $29.95. $35.00 (CAN). ISBN: 978-1-85240-679-4). Buy Hip Flask: Concrete Jungle in the USA - or Buy Hip Flask: Concrete Jungle in the UK  check our websites: www.imagecomics.com, www.comicraft.comand www.hipflask.com
'Concrete Jungle' collects 'Hip Flask: Elephantmen' and 'Hip Flask: Mystery City' titles which any discerning comics fan should have tucked away in their collector's boxes by now. In my previous review of the series, I wrote of how this vividly imagined world, within which genetically engineered human/animal hybrids struggle against hatred and prejudice in a futuristic noir soaked city, was one of the most enjoyable and thoroughly original titles to have been produced in the last few years.
Image and ComicCraft have done the series proud with this hardcover collection which presents the issues in such a way that we are finally able to appreciate Ladronn's work on the title in all of its magical glory.
As mentioned on the Hipflask website, the images are much larger than their single issue counterparts and are also 2 inches wider, meaning that we get to see more of the pages than was originally published.
This is a story that greatly benefits from this treatment. Sahara's desolation as she stands in the birthing chamber of the mappo facility is brought home even harder by the lonely expanse of space that surrounds her. The convoluted two-page spread that depicts the roadways of L.A. fills the readers field of view so that you can almost taste the fumes rising from the roadways.
Few comics have managed to match up to the sheer beauty of Ladronn's work and this is reason enough for this edition to be on anyone's want list. It's also a chance for those of us who have already experienced this world to re-visit it again and I welcome any reason I can get to do that.
To top it all, the book also features a gallery of Ladronn's work on both 'Hip Flask' and its sister title 'Elephantmen', featuring some of my favourite covers from the latter series.
This is without doubt a classic piece of comics history. Buy it now or I'm going to have to make a quick call to The Silencer and you wouldn't want that now, would you?
Paul Skevington
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