Blog Archives
Various Spark Plug anthologies – Orchid
And to think that I was regretting saving this one for last. After that Bogus Dead book in the middle of the week I was pretty sure nothing else was going to touch it, then along comes this book. In my opinion. there are two ways to make a great anthology. You can either have a lot of pieces, fast and furious, and you’ll come away with a good impression of the book as long as the majority of them are solid, or you can have a book with only a select few, long pieces. Orchid is comprised of seven long tales adaptations of gothic stories. The only one that didn’t do anything for me was Poe’s “The Raven”, and that’s mostly just because I’ve seen so many adaptations of it at this point in my life that I just don’t want to see it again. A personal problem of mine, granted, but that doesn’t change the fact that everything else in here is creepy and good. Kevin Huizenga (the back says that he “used to do a comic book named Supermonster”. Please don’t tell me that he’s done, that’s one of the best series out there and I only just found out about it!) has the longest piece, a disturbing tale about the power of visions. Here’s a list of the other names, and let me know if you need and more convincing: Lark Pien & Jesse Reklaw, Ben Catmull, T. Edward Bak, David Lasky, and Dylan Williams. It’s only $8 and I couldn’t recommend it more highly. Get this and Bogus dead and your anthology needs for the year should be pretty much met. If the website still isn’t working, you can send money to: Spark Plug Comics P. O. Box 10952 Portland, OR 97296-0952.
Bak, T. Edward – The Firefly Waltz
The Firefly Waltz
I feel like I should explain the setup of this before I get into the contents, because this is anything but a traditional mini. What you have here are nine cards in a little fold-out setting. One the back of each of these cards is writing. You know, the story. And behind the cards is a picture of the story in progress. To sum up, I’ll show you what the average page looks like:
Front, back, and then the actual picture. You can see where the card was in the corners of the picture. Everybody got it? OK. The actual story is about a little boy, seen above and a girl, and a mysterious figure called Liberacion who offers them the future for a song. It’s a gorgeous book and it looks like he has plans for a lot more, although I don’t see how it could ever be done in a way where more than a few dozen people could buy it. But what do I know about stuff like this? It’s unique and worth a look, so send him some money at: P.O. Box 301 Athens, GA 30603-0301. Or just e-mail him, whatever floats your boat…