Death Comes to Monkeysuit is the fifth Monkeysuit anthology, and if you've never checked out any of the Monkeysuit books, you're missing one of the best indy anthologies on the market. Monkeysuit is put together in large part by animators and comics veterans, and that means a certain level of basic professionalism and artistic skill across the board. The subject matter and tone hovers around the slice-of-life genre, with diversions into the more surreal. The artistic style has a lot of variation, and there's a lot of different artistic styles to like, some reminiscent of favorite indy creators and all strong on their own merits. This volume is an assortment of the usual suspects as well as a handful of new faces, all offering up interesting or funny chapters of their own lives or that of their characters, and while a few of the stories were a bit too off the beaten path for me, most of them I found very engaging and fun.
You can tell you've got a good anthology in your hands when you have trouble picking your favorite out. Usually one story just stands out, but in the case of Death Comes to Monkeysuit, there are three that I would put into the "loved it" category. "My First Encounter With Evil" is one of the longer stories of the book, an autobiographical tale of middle school bullies and backstabbers by Prentis Rollins. Rollins perfectly captures the insecurity of that age as well as the semi-embarrassed hindsight that comes with maturing and looking back on that kind of formative schoolyard abuse, and I also really love his depiction of feathered hair and other goofy '70s/'80s fashion trends. Also in the autobiographical vein is Amanda Baehr's "On the Job," a tale of working in less-than-ideal jobs and dreaming bigger, and I loved the reveal of structure as to why all these other jobs and injuries were crossing her path, as well as her clean art style, which reminds me somewhat of Rick "Shuck" Smith. Then there's another "Atomic Shelter" story by Miguel Martinez-Joffre, whose art style bears a resemblance to the exaggerated work of Peter Bagge and whose high school humor tale is weird and hilariously funny, with a nice misanthropic streak running through it that never makes it less likable and fun.
Those are my three favorites, but there are a ton of good stories in this anthology. Mo Willems, creator of Sheep in the Big City, turns in a funny three-pager about the sort of bizarre thought process that seems to dominate amongst television executives if tales of the industry are to be believed. Douglas Lovelace uses four pages for "Micromythic Tales #1," a very touching story of parents, childrens and expectations with a nice little sci-fi twist at the end and slick, beautiful art that reminds me of the work of Ted Naifeh. Also in the "short but sweet" category is "Dealtown" by Pat Giles, a five-page story that, in telling a story of a broken toy, captures a lot of the hurt and pain of divorce as well as the connection a boy seeks to his enigmatic father. "Couch Movin' Day" by Chris George is also only five pages, and it's fairly light on content, basically being a snapshot of a schoolyard crush, but it's sweet and fun and really nice to look at.
Steven DeStefano's "Good Guy and Easterboy" is a funny little poke at the foibles of comics shops and comics fans with some very funny gags and Michael Foran's Rover story "The Stinky Guest" is a fun, wordless tale with art that strongly echoes Scott Morse (one of my favorite cartoonists). Robert Kopekcy's "Faith and Mr. Floppy" is likewise beautiful, along the same lines as the work of Enrico Casarosa visually but with a story that is a sweet rumination on childhood imagination and wonder.
Which isn't to say that all of the stories struck a chord with me. I once again found Andrei Poteryaylo's work beautifully illustrated but damn near impossible to follow and sort of long for a story that essentially doesn't go anywhere. I also had some trouble connecting with Fly's somewhat meandering tale "Dog Dayz," and it took a couple read-throughs before I caught on that it was a tale of a couple hitchhikers and an unreliable ride, although a lot of the blame for that can be laid on a misprint that left out the narration... the complete story can be found on the website with narration intact. Jonathan Royce's "The Song" is a wordless tale about a song that gets stuck in your head, and it also failed to really grab me, although part of that might have been it's placement as the last story, when I had already settled into a groove of expectations about the stories and Royce's work ran so contrary to just about everything before it.
In short, though, Death Comes to Monkeysuit is an excellent anthology filled with talent. It's got me in the mood to go out and snap up the volumes that I've missed, at the very least.
