I've written about Comiculture before, and I was from the start impressed by this unusual, full-color magazine style anthology, which featured a number of impressive talents and a gorgeous format uncommon in the small press. Unfortunately, monetary realities have set in, and the new Comiculture Anthology is not a full-color magazine but a black and white trade paperback. Despite this change in format, though, some important things haven't changed. The production quality is still excellent, the talent still impressive and the stories still a hell of a lot of fun. There's a variety of genres displayed here, from romance to humor to fantasy adventure to a travelogue, as well as a variety of format, from the one-page strip to a two-chapter tale, and it's no exaggeration to say that Comiculture Anthology offers up something for everyone.
It is a rarity to find an anthology in which a reader likes every story, and even the original Comiculture magazine couldn't manage that for me, as some stories didn't click as well as most of them had. However, I actually enjoyed every story in Comiculture Anthology from cover to cover. The artwork never falters, the storytelling is always good and the subject matter always interesting. Comiculture is flying under the radar of most comics fans, and that's a shame, because the guys at Mad Science Media are an idea factory that is offering up a breath of fresh air in an often stale marketplace.
Of course, just because I liked all the stories doesn't mean I didn't have any favorites that stood out more than the others. I was delighted to see a one-page illustrated gag by Halo & Sprocket's Kerry Callen, as his sense of humor and charming art style never fails. Steve Buccellato gets in on the one-page gag action as well with a very funny one-pager that teases the willful unhappiness of the goth crowd. Then there was "Suffer the Salt" by Chris Burnham, probably my favorite longer form story in the book, that tells the lavishly illustrated tale of a band of Christian pirates and the challenge they face from a heathen, as well as a detailed account of what exactly "keelhauling" is. Despite my love of pirate lore, I never knew, which makes "Suffer the Salt" educational and entertaining, and Burnham's artwork is realistic and detailed, reminiscent of the work of Steve Lieber.
Like many others, I followed the adventures of Marie Javins as she crossed the globe on her Maries World Tour website, and I kept hoping that she would eventually bring some of those stories to comics, as she has in "Jambo, I'll Have Your Money Now," an account of the time she spent in con man-heavy Nairobi in Africa. The story features same mixture of information about foreign culture told through the viewpoint of a seasoned traveler who hasn't lost the enthusiasm for new experiences that Javins brought to her web accounts, and the artwork by Don Hudson is terrific. Actually, Hudson never falters in these pages, turning in a brief but cute classic romance short with "Love Works Its Magic" and a beautifully rendered "foreign film on paper" with Vince Evans on "Sin of the Wolf" that is maybe a little too short and borders on predictable but is enjoyable for its strong storytelling nonetheless.
The spread of genre on Comiculture is impressive, but there's also a nice variance in style. Jessica Wolk-Stanley's two-part "I Loved A Zombie" has an angular style that reminds me more than anything of animation drawings, and the story is told with the same enthusiasm and heavy narrative of a '50s romance, albeit with a quite a twist on the nature of the romance. "Clarissa: Down the Rabbit Hole" by Scalera and Evans features art that looks more like the work of Frank Cho and reads almost like Robert E. Howard by way of Walt Disney, a fantasy adventure with a touch of light fun. "The Prune" by Alex Zamm and Graeme Callandar reads more like a Pixar short, with an exaggerated cartoony style, an amusing premise and a hilarious delivery on that premise, as they tell the tale of an elderly superhero. Then there's "The Life of Otis McKenzie," a two-pager about the death of a well-liked prisoner with a funny, clever shocker that reveals everything the reader needs to know about him with its surprise ending.
Like I said, not a bad story in the bunch, and if I'd rather have seen these stories in all their color glory, I certainly don't feel that the art or stories suffer for being in black and white. Indeed, some of them, notably "Jambo" and "Suffer the Salt" are probably better off in black and white, where the detail on the art and the general vibe is better served without color to interfere. Comiculture Anthology is not available in comic shops, unfortunately, but it will be on sale at booth 2005 in San Diego this week and can be bought from the CafePress website at http://www.cafepress.com/comiculture. It's well worth the time and extra effort to seek out.
