There’s no question about it — the colourful cast of merry misfits in Netflix’s Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness have to be seen to be believed.
In fact, some would say that Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin and Jeff Lowe are such outlandish characters that they could come from someone’s (very messed up) imagination — but according to comic book writer Michael Frizell, “you can’t make this stuff up.”
US comic book and graphic novel publisher TidalWave Productions has announced that it will add a Tiger King comic book to its “infamous” series, proving that there is no end to this craze.
Infamous: Tiger King will be released in June and is a 22-page comic book biography written by Frizell and drawn by Joe Paradise (fitting, no?).
“During the Age of COVID-19, the world needs a distraction. Perhaps that’s why we’re collectively riveted to Netflix’s Tiger King,” a statement on their website read.
“A murder mystery in the vein of Dateline, Tiger King introduced the world to the flamboyant Joe Exotic, a former magician, country singer, and zookeeper with a troubled past. Joe now sits in jail for planning to murder his rival, Big Cat Rescue owner and animal rights activist Carole Baskin, who he accuses of killing her husband and feeding him to her tigers. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction in this origin story of both Joe and Carole in a flipbook.”
Unreal.
“I never imagined that I’d be researching a book like this. It was a challenge to find a focus for the comic because there’s so much happening. No wonder Netflix created a limited series as opposed to a Dateline episode,” Frizell said.
TidalWave publisher Darren G Davis said that the release of the comic would be a “good distraction” and because he was so obsessed with the story, like the majority of the world, he “wanted to tell it from a different medium”.
Artist Paradise shared the sentiment — with the added element of having worked in an animal hospital himself.
“[I] found out that pet people can be a little bit eccentric. I just remember starting to watch the show saying to myself, “yeah, that tracks,” he said, before adding: “Before Joe Exotic came along, I never thought I’d hear anything that sounded as fake as Joe Paradise. Unlike Mr Schriebvogel-Maldonado-Passage, however, that’s my real name.”
The INFAMOUS series have included in the past comic book biographies on Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan.
