Flight Three (2006)
anthologized by Kazu Kibuishi (Preview)
Flight Three is so similar in its major characteristics to the second one, that there isn’t much more to say I didn’t already said about the second one. It’s a fat anthology of comic shorts that stretch over the whole genrescape: science fiction, fantasy, mainstream and many other, with a wide variety of styles and themes. Mostly I would divide them into shorts with excellent art and similar good writing (or narrative, there aren’t always words) and those that look well but whose story is kind of lacking (from bland to just WTF). There were no more than two or three pieces I really disliked. One the whole it’s a really good mix.
Some of the stuff I really liked was rather whimsical (for example Kean Soo’s Jellaby: The Tea Party or Matthew S. Armstrong’s Snow Cap) without much pretension to tell something serious (with meaning and all that deep shit). Some of those that tried serious stuff occasionally came over rather pretentious (The Iron Gate). One story I thought was completely nonsensical and gave me the big WTF moment of the anthology was Polaris by Azad Injejikian. A floating girl has problems getting friends, a floodlike occurrence wipes out humanity and she finds freedom in death by getting reunited with her mother. That was wrong on so many levels. One of the more serious stories I liked was Alex Fuente’s One Miracle for a Hungry Swarm, a very strange (possible) far future Earth that provides the backdrop for a rather harsh life lesson.
Overall, if you liked the second and the first anthology, part three won’t disappoint either.
Rating: 4/5
Flight Two (2005)
anthologized by Kazu Kibuishi (Preview)
This is more than twice as big as the first volume. But while the quantity has increased, the quality hasn’t suffered. Like I wrote about the first Flight anthology, I didn’t like everything, but with that much more space there were more pieces I really liked. One positive thing was that most contributors seem to have abandoned the attempt to make their pieces fit the flight theme, which in my eyes was a smart step and has improved the overall quality.
Again there’s a diversity of styles and themes. There’s everything from slice of life to science fiction to high fantasy to fairy tales to whatever. Reading it felt like watching the Saturday morning cartoons as a kid, when you hadn’t yet known the TV program by heart and every hour gave you something new to wonder and amaze about.
Rating: 4/5
Flight One (2004)
anthologized by Kazu Kibuishi (Preview)
Compared to single-author offerings anthologies always suffer, there’s not one strong voice that you either completely like or dislike, but a diverse lot of writers/artists. Still, diversity like this can also be a strength, if are open to experience something new again and again. I can’t say I liked everything in Flight One, but I liked seeing a different drawing style with each story, each distinguished and unique in its own way.
One problem that I often find popping up in comics is that few artists are good at both writing and drawing, often the writing and plotting is inferior to the art, which is also a problem in this anthology. While non of the stories were really bad, many were also not distinctly good or great. This may have also been a problem of trying to fit a story to the theme of the anthology, some stories connection to the flight theme is rather flimsy. All these problems are easy to forget while enjoying the art, but they are there.
Some of the stories I really enjoyed on both fronts (art and narrative) were: I wish…” by Vera Brosgol, Paper and String by Jen Wang and All Time Low by Dylan Meconis and Bill Mudron.
Rating: 3/5
