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Various Artists – Future Shock #0
Before I get into any of the content, I just want to point out that this is one of the most beautifully colored books that I’ve ever seen. Granted, a lot of small press anthologies are in black and white, but every story in this collection is colored beautifully, up to and including the collages by Josh Burggraf. So hey, what about the content? This is a collection of science fiction stories on a variety of different themes. Some (but by no means all) of my favorites included Vincent Giard’s tale on perspective in movement and meaning, Jason Murphy’s conceptual struggle, Lala Albert’s piece on mutations caused by a certain type of water and what people do with said mutations, a lengthy wordless piece by Alex Degen about virtual reality and the consequences of dreaming, William Cardini’s depiction of the death of a planet and the aftermath, Pat Aulisio playing around in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with mad dogs and killer lizards, Aleks Sennwald and Pete Toms showing the lingering effect of ads on the environment (even long after humanity is gone), and Anuj Shreshta’s story on the increasing ease of blocking out all bad thoughts and opinions and the consequences of those actions. Aside from being just damned pretty, this is also one of the more thoughtful science fiction comics I’ve read in ages. The last two stories I mentioned alone had several comments and images in each of them that made me stop and think or examine an assumption I’d had from a different angle, which is always welcome. No anthology is ever going to be perfect for everybody, but if you can’t find several stories in here to love then maybe the fault is on your end. $18
Various Artists – Supertalk #1
Now Available! $5
Supertalk #1
I love that cover. Absolutely perfect for the title, and if you ask me to explain that belief I will run away from you at top speed. This is an anthology put together by Eric Watkins, or at least published by Eric Watkins, and it features all sorts of folks that I’ll get into more in a minute. You could maybe say that talking was the unifying theme, but you would most likely be wrong, as these stories are all over the place. J.T. Yost is up first with a funny short piece on the daily lives of pigeons. Next is Sung Yoon Choi with a piece about how she never knew her parents and was raised by her Aunt (or at least the character in her story was, I have no idea if this is autobiographical). That one seemed to end very suddenly, so maybe there’s more out there, or maybe it was just meant to end suddenly and I didn’t get it. This will take forever to review at this rate, and it’ll be a mess anyway because of a lack of a table of contents (although at least the artists were listed in order of their appearance), so how about I mention my highlights? There’s Paul Hoppe with a reverse ventriloquism strip, Adam Kidder with Fundar the Funbarian (it’s just as fantastic as it sounds), James Turek with a piece about crashing into a car that’s already on the way to the hospital, Andres Vera Martinex with his introduction to Chicago life and Chris Butzer with a story on the fog of doom. There are plenty of other interesting bits and pieces in here, and one thing that immediately stood out was the sheer diversity of the artists. If you buy anthologies looking for a pile of new and potentially interesting artists, this is an excellent showcase. Naturally, I didn’t love everything about it (those anthologies are few and far between), but there’s more than enough good stuff in here to make it worth checking out. $5
