Derek Kirk Kim

You don’t say no to Spiderman’s girlfriend Mary Jane, but maybe it’s easier if you’ve already said no to Superman. To be offered a chance to work on these characters is any comic creator’s wet dream, but Derek Kirk Kim turned them down. In the world of comics, you don’t get much more hardcore than that.

But then, cartoonist Kim clearly thrives on missed orgasmic opportunities. Strips from his online compendium, http://www.lowbright.com, and his multiple-award-winning anthology Same Difference and Other Stories, showcase the bitter travails of being an artistic, neurotic, and sexually frustrated male. Kim willingly flays open his inner pain—from pubic issues to rejections from beautiful K-girls to a rather dark solution for eternal virginity—for comedic effect. And like writer/artist comics icons Chris Ware and Robert Crumb, Kim infuses what could be sad stories with craft and self-knowledge, and a sweet intelligence shines through the darkness.

After Same Difference racked up numerous accolades—the Xeric grant for self-published cartoonists, the Ignatz award for promising new talent, and the Harvey and Eisner Awards, the Oscars of the comic book world—Kim had his pick of mainstream comics projects. Instead, he elected to write a script for the Minx Imprint, a line of graphic novels for—of all things—girls. Good as Lily, drawn by Jesse Hamm, features an 18-year-old woman who must suddenly confront herself at ages 6, 29, and 70. Kim admits it was hard to let go of the visuals after creating the art for his own scripts for so long, but gives Ham props for “accommodating my control freakiness” and the unique nuances Hamm brought to the story. And online reviewers are already raving about Good as Lily’s wry humor and insight.

Despite the showers of praise, Kim remains happily independent and resignedly single (unless “Real Dolls” count, he says). It’s hard to picture this mom-loving, clean-living, witty, articulate cartoonist as an industry iconoclast. But somehow Derek Kirk Kim is doing it, one missed love connection at a time.