Writer/Artists: Various
Company: Image Comics

The anthology format in comics is full of promise and pitfalls. A wide range of creators and stories means you’re almost guaranteed to get as many big misses as big hits with any particular reader, and anything you like is probably going to feel too short, while anything you hate is going to feel like it’s taking up valuable space. And almost every single reader will have a different view on which one is which. And even the corporate superhero giants have trouble selling anthologies, so something non-superhero from another publisher is going to have a huge uphill battle. So why do folks keep making anthologies? Well, there are any number of reasons, I would guess, but the best one, the one that keeps me buying anthologies, is that almost without fail, every anthology has at least one creator that is going to become one of your favorites.

Which brings me to Popgun Volume One, a “graphic mixtape” helmed by Amazing Joy Buzzards writer Mark Andrew Smith and Image PR director Joe Keatinge, which has dozens of my favorites. For the most part, Popgun is not made up of first-time creators, but neither are most of the contributors heavyweights that everybody will have heard of. I’ve seen work from maybe 80% of these creators elsewhere, but there were still some new names, and maybe more importantly, tons of new concepts. Image could launch a half-dozen new (and really good) series out of the concepts in this book, easy. At $30, Popgun might seem a bit pricy, but when you realize that buys you over 400 pages of full-color comics, it begins to seem like a downright steal.

Many anthologies have a theme, but as co-editor Keatinge explains at the tail end of Popgun, this came about because he and co-editor Smith were discussing their love of comics and music and decided to combine the two into a sort of “graphic mixtape” for comics. So they started inviting people to make comics. That’s it. Simple. Pure. And the end result shows the sheer chaotic joy of such an endeavor. As with the Flight anthologies, there’s no overriding theme, just a bunch of creators turning in whatever they were interested in at the time. Actually, the Flight anthologies are a pretty good comparison, as Popgun has the same stunning amount of visual talent on display.

There’s a nice diverse mix of art style, story style, subject matter and more going on in Popgun. The genres run the gamut from romance to humor to horror to superhero to action to sci-fi and more. The art styles include everything from cartoony to painted to Silver Age homage to abstract and beyond. The opening pages range from a surreal wordless dreamscape with a poignant ending to a terrific scene between a couple that has broken up to an action-packed B movie on paper featuring a giant mutant soldier invading an island and killing monsters. There is quite literally something for everyone… the book is like a giant sampler of new artists and storytellers, and while nobody will like every story, the success rate in Popgun is higher than it is in most anthologies.

There are a few faces familiar to fans of indie comics, such as Madman, the Amazing Joy Buzzards, Hector Plasm and The Engineer, but most of the book is made up of new concepts or one-off stories. Some are pretty complete in this volume, even though there could clearly be more in the same vein. Mike Bullock and Marcelo Di Chiara’s “Tiger-Man,” which is an all-ages superhero tale that reads as both loving parody and straightforward old school superhero fun, is something I’d love to see more of. Ditto for Erik Hunter’s cute young moon-based, monster-fighting super girl Gamma Rae. And I’m dying for more of another monster-fighting girl, the more mature, “superheroes meet Buffy meets Freaks and Geeks” approach of Adrian Dominguez and Matthew Weldon on “Ellie Saves the World.”

Mark Andrew Smith might have created this anthology just to contain some of his new ideas with artists other than his AJB collaborator Dan Hipp. If so, it’s worth hoping that all of them will break free into more full-fledged comic series, because they’re all great. “New Brighton Archaeological Society”, with art by Matthew Weldon, about the children of great explorers, is an all-ages ensemble about supernatural adventure and the nature of being a kid. “Ambush,” with art by Paul Maybury that recalls the work of Bryan Lee O’Malley, is a teasing, tantalizing view of their upcoming graphic novel Aqua Leung. And my favorite of the bunch, “The Liberators,” has art by Johann “Ullcer” Leroux that blends terrific action storytelling with a style in the vein of Brian Hurtt or Steve Rolston, and a modern day revolutionaries concept that is superhero meets pulp with maybe a touch of Fight Club style anti-corporate politics.

Some stories are just perfect anthology fodder, small tales that are complete in a few pages. “Remnants,” an almost European comics style vision of dystopian future by R.G. Llarena and Milton Sobreiro, is one, a haunting tale with visuals that remind me of the best work of Igor Kordey. Tim Seeley and Jeremy Dale’s “Love Will Tear You Apart” is an effective twist on a zombie invasion with a character-centric approach. Mark Sable and Rob Guillory turn in a strange, imaginative take on the wild west with “They Shoot Ponies, Don’t They?” Derek McCulloch and Shepherd Hendrix tell a self-contained campfire style horror story in “Jenny Greenteeth.” And Richard Starking and Phil Yeh turn in an imaginative take on the unicorn with “Kiss of Death.”

Then there’s manic fun, like the technicolor kung-fu extravaganza “PINAPL” by Corey Lewis or the openly ludicrous and hilarious “Ninja Platypus” by Chris Moreno. Julio Figueroa and Chamakoso serve up a manga-influenced art style and a fun story that lives up to the promise of its name, “Solomon Finch vs. 100 Bikini Girls,” which is almost the epitome of what you want from a short and sweet anthology tale. Andy Kuhn’s “Mexican Wrestler Funnies” is a terrific blend of Engrish-style nonsense catch phrases and the basic humor of men in masks and tights wrestling. In the “wow, what are these guys smoking and where can I get it” department, we’ve got James Stokoe taking us on a tour of Hell, Jason Latour offering up the insane and borderline nonsensical (if hilarious) “Sp@ce, Muth@ Fuck@!” and Sheldon Vella delivering a bizarrely colorful tale of hyper-active robots and Internet speak in “Super Tron.”

There’s more, of course, over 50 stories all told, and there’s really not a bad one in the bunch. There are a few that might not connect with some, certainly a few didn’t connect with me, but there’s a level of writing and art craft to be found that is impressively high.