Books: Detroit Metal City Vol #1

At the tender age of ten, Johannes Krauser II picked up a boning knife and slashed the throats of his hapless parents, leaving their lifeless corpses bathing in pools of gore. Prison’s puny walls couldn’t hold a specimen of pure evil like him forever, though … and while locked in his cell, he realized the only music that could keep him from killing again was the violent sound of DEATH METAL. And so after his release, he formed blood bonds with two other madmen (Jagi, bass; Camus, drums) and created the most terrifying onslaught of evil-core death metal ever to sweep the face of this undeserving earth … DETROIT METAL CITY!

Except that his real name is Soichi Negishi and he’s really a demure young man who loves his mom, folksy pop ballads, and a nice comfy sweater (not in that order). But put him on stage and wrap him in a costume that Gene Simmons would find gaudy, and lo’n’behold he turns into an earsplitting underground devil of blood-sucking sonic blasphemy. “I am a terrorist from hell!” he bellows in Detroit Metal City’s opening panels. (The rest of the lyrics to that song sound like what you’d hear from the mother-rapers and father-stabbers [and father-rapers, and mother-stabbers] that shared the lockup with Arlo Guthrie when he got picked up for littering and creating a public nuisance.)

Article originally written for AMN. Click here to read full text.