Sunday, April 3, 2011

Anthologies--Woo!

Man, I love anthologies, especially of the comic book variety.

I'll admit they are exceedingly difficult to review, since each story is likely to be of a different quality (oh, Pop Gun and MOME, how I love thee . . . but there's always one or two stories that plod). But they are also a ton of fun, especially if you are in the mood for a short, done-in-one kinda story, either a bunch or one at a time.

In fact, I was super excited to accidentally discover that comic book fantasy anthology Elf World, which was a one-off from a few years back, has resurfaced as a quarterly book, and number two is about to come out. Check out info here. The original was like a breath of awesome (I talked about it on SFist a little like a million years ago).

So that's a nice surprise. Currently attempting to earmark 12 bucks to buy the new series.

Another nice surprise is that OO contributor (writer of the Apocalypse Meh! comic and semi-frequent looks at the world of comics) Jonathan Westhoff is organizing a kickstarter campaign to publish an anthology. It's basically a sampling of stories from creators that met on the 11 O'Clock Comics forums, the online presence of a quite popular podcast.

I was inclined to like it because Jon was involved, but just checking out those sweet samples on the kickstarter page made my jaw drop, jest a little bit.

So, if you like anthologies, good art, and publications that really capture the spirit of comics, definitely check out Elf World, and seriously consider a donation to Jon's kickstarter campaign.