Everybody is all abuzz about Flight Volume Two, the second (very impressive) volume of the cool anthology series that everyone was buzzing about in San Diego last year. Not as many of them will know about Four Letter Worlds, which is like Flight's cooler, smarter kid brother. Digest size instead of full size, black and white instead of color, heavy on the indy creators instead of animators and much more focused on its themes, Four Letter Worlds is an exceptional anthology, whether you're comparing it to the gold standard that Flight has set or just taking it on its own merits. Exploring stories in the realm of love, hate, fear and fate (I love themes that rhyme), Four Letter Worlds allows its creators to be as serious or light as they want, and most of them turn in either autobiographical or otherwise slice-of-life tales, intimate looks into how people interact, while creators like Antony Johnston and Mark Ricketts give us change of pace humor or experimental drama. This is a tightly-packed collection of great short stories that I could not put down.
While many of the creators here have toiled in the mainstream (by which I mean the big two), most of them are more identified with the indy comic book scene, either from self-publishing, Oni Press or Image Comics. This is a book put together not by hot names but by masters of the comic book craft, who know that comics are more than just superheroes and have put their talents into work beyond that genre. This flexibility, the ability to work in different genres, is no doubt a big part of what makes Four Letter Worlds a success. That all of these folks have such strong talent, honed on other projects, is another. There are three newbie talents here, but they acquit themselves well, and editor Eric Stephenson deserves a hearty congratulations for putting together a talent roster this strong.
In any anthology, there are going to be favorites, but I have a hard time picking one story over the other in Four Letter Worlds, which is a mark of how good the anthology is overall. My personal favorite in the "Love" section was Joe Casey and Mike Huddleston's moody, misanthropic meditation on breaking up "Funk," while the "Hate" section included "Loud" by Jay Faerber and Steve Rolston, a funny and true-to-life portrayal of the frustrations of dealing with loud neighbors (boy can I relate) and the casual discussion of relationships and ending them in "Junk" by Eric Stephenson and Mike Norton. "Fear" brings us Steve Lieber's tale of a cave rescue mixed with some everyday romantic stirrings in "Fell" and Scott Morse opens up with every artist's worst fear in the moving "Mano."
My favorite section overall, though, is easily the one that closes out the book, "Fate." Of the stories in this section, only "Fate" by Matt Fraction and Kieron Dwyer didn't knock my socks off, and it's examination of how people's lives interact with their pasts and each other was still pretty good. It just couldn't live up to the high standards set by the rest of the section. Chynna Clugston delivers what may be the sweetest, most romantic thing she's ever written (and drawn) in "Anew," Jamie Rich brings his acerbic wit and cynical point-of-view to a tale of lying that could only have been drawn by Andi Watson in "True" and Antony Johnston and Mike Hawthorne had me laughing out loud with a couple of marketing guys trying to upsell the embodiment of fate on some new image enhancements.
There are six other stories in Four Letter Worlds that I haven't specifically talked about, and they're all pretty good to great as well. It was great to see Steven (Hawaiian Dick) Griffin's work on the wordless "Spin," a Hornby-esque piece written by B. Clay Moore that looks at how music influences memory and relationships, and another silent piece, a collaboration between Mark Ricketts and Phil Hester, gives a more surreal twist to the expression of angst that we all feel from time to time in "Same." Jim Mahfood just cuts loose on a wild and wacky trip into pornland (a place he's visited with some success before in We Love Porn) in "Lust," Kirkman tells the tale of a lady hitman with impressive art by tyro talent Matt Roberts on "Blam" and J. Torres teams with another new talent, R. John Bernales, for a terrific shifting perspective story of a childhood memory. Then there are the slightly weirder stories, as Amber Benson teams with Jamie McKelvie for a strange, subdued look at losing someone in the appropriately titled "Loss" and Jeff Parker delivers "Bear," a story of a family in witness protection who find salvation in childhood animal friends that works far better than it should in theory.
Four Letter Worlds looks great, with a number of distinctive artists bringing their style and their "A game" to the work, and it reads great, with talented writers playing to their strengths and yet stretching new artistic muscles at the same time. Whether you decide to read it in small chunks, a story at a time when you can fit it in or just plow through it all at 3 a.m. when you should be sleeping (like I did), I think that those who give the book a try will find that it quickly wraps them in its spell. 10/10
