Every day this month I'm going to feature a current comic book writing "star," someone who I think is a very good writer.

I'm mostly going to try to keep from the biggest names as much as possible, because, really, do I need to talk more about the awesomeness of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis?

Here is the archive of previously featured writers.

Today we look at a great award-winning writer!

Enjoy!

Derek Kirk Kim's most notable project so far has got to be Same Difference And Other Stories, which began its life as a webcomic on Kim's website (www.lowbright.com) before he received a Xeric Grant in 2002 helping him to publish it.

Top Shelf ended up putting it out, and it really is a notable work.

Kim manages to translate the mundane realities of life into an entertaining narrative, and the book is also notable in how quickly you get to know the characters as well as how easy it is to relate to them, whether their particular problems are ones you deal with (much of Same Difference is about Kim's Korean heritage) or not.

Kim had an interesting, if short-lived, sequel of sorts (in tone, not so much content-wise) to Same Difference on his website for awhile. I don't know if we'll ever see anything more of that (I believe it was called Healing Hands). I'll admit that I was waiting for the collection, so I only read the first few web installments. They were good, though!

Kim's next major work was for DC's short-lived Minx line, and it was called Good as Lily...

It was about a teenage girl being visited by herself as a young girl, her adult self and her elderly self.

I recommended it when it came out, and you can read my review here!

Kim currently is doing an online art journal type thing that is interesting. Check it out on his website here.

I also believe he's working on a new graphic novel as strictly an artist.