If you’re into greasy fast food, grand theft and satanic cults, then this is the comic for you!
Trve Kvlt follows the very uneventful life of Burger Lord worker, Marty Tarantella (or Tarantula as he likes to call himself). He’s your typical dead-end job employee- bored to tears and painfully unsatisfied with the way his life has turned out. But unlike other fast food workers, Marty has a plan: Clock out for lunch, rob the nearby strip mall and come back just in time for a five minute snack.
Marty successfully completes his heist within the first 10 pages. He’s so taken with the job well done that he internally congratulates himself for accomplishing such a task when the odds were against him. Granted, not everyone would consider grand theft a lifetime achievement. But to Marty, it’s more than just theft. It’s the act of following through with the plan that gives him a strong sense of pride and significance: two things he is severely lacking.
Once the excitement wears off, he heads back to work and it’s business as usual. He conducts an interview with a potential employee by the name of Alison Ladd. For the most part, Alison isn’t really new to the Burger Lord franchise. She’s a two year veteran and proud of it! She actually spends most of the interview going on about how much she believes in the Burger Lord work ethic and how important it is to know your customers, etc., etc. The whole conversation kind of plays out like those movie scenes where a supporting character talks a mile a minute about something while the main character totally blocks them out and focuses on something else.
As Alison drones on, Marty notices something far more interesting in the background: two cops pulling up near the restaurant. They make their way inside, and Marty starts sweating bullets. They approach his manager, Bernice, and ask her if she knows anything about a recent robbery. Alison, being the ever-knowledgeable one, chimes in saying she saw a guy in a mask holding a gun and a duffel bag. According to her, the man approached a truck driver and abruptly started making out with her before throwing his bags in the truck and driving off. The cops claim that it was the truck driver who called them, but Alison argues that the truck driver is the true culprit.
Now, our guy, Marty was definitely wearing a mask and holding a gun and a duffel bag during his little heist. But he certainly didn’t make out with the truck driver nor did he drive away with her; he just robbed her and went on his merry way. At this point, we can’t tell whether Alison is knowingly trying to cover for Marty or not, but he finds himself very much intrigued by her ability to single-handedly keep the cops off his scent. Just as he begins to question her about what she knows, two random Satanists show up accusing Marty of stealing from them.
I’m not much of an Indie comic reader, so I didn’t really know what to expect when I started reading Trve Kvlt. I did notice, however, a lot of classic storytelling elements present throughout the piece. Here are a few of them:
Suspenseful Cliffhanger
It’s an abrupt ending, but it’s a classic comic ending nonetheless: Just when the audience realizes that shit’s about to get real, we’re forced to wait for the next issue. There were a few hints that the story is a bit darker than it seems, like Alison’s morbid anecdote about finding a dead woman in the parking lot or the fact that the owners are narcissistic, verbally abusive jerks. But we don’t get to witness the darker central plot twist until the very last page.
Randomness of Storylines
One of the many things I love about comics is the sheer randomness in storylines. In just this issue alone, we find out so many things about Marty’s shady philosophy on life, and we get introduced to very eccentric characters like Alison and the Satanists. Although everything seems unrelated now, things will slowly but surely come together when the time comes.
Relatability
Almost everyone has had the misfortune of staying in a dead-end job longer than they thought they would. People in the entertainment industry do it all the time just to keep themselves afloat while working on their craft. Then there are some who just don’t know what they want want out of life, plain and simple. What was initially just a stepping stone quickly becomes a job that they don’t want to wake up to in the morning. Trve Klvt carries the essence of this reality, especially when discussing Marty’s backstory.
Final Thoughts
As a hardcore superhero lover, I usually look for comics that involve high octane action, jaded backstories, and extraordinary powers. Needless to say, reading and writing about an indie comic book that doesn’t belong to a wider universe is new territory for me. I’m used to everything I read being part of the same cohesive reality. Trve Kvlt is a refreshing break from that, and I’m excited to see how Marty and the rest of the Burger Lord gang take on the Devil himself .
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