As this year comes to a close I look at all the comics I’ve reviewed, and the ones I didn’t. Some comics go unreviewed because I got them for free and don’t like them, others because the quality is very poor, and others because I don’t want to read them. But anthology comics get passed on for review because they contain too many short stories from an assortment of creators so a review wouldn’t do it justice and might mislead you. So I’m gonna talk about em here! And this isn’t a professional review like the others, this is really just me talking about these compilations I spent my hard earned money on.
4 Pages 16 Bars: A Visual Mixtape Volume 6: The Feel
This is a comic featuring snippets of other comics by mostly black artists with links to their works and stuff. Think of it as one of them old demo disks for video games. The first time I read this I thought this was a true anthology comic with a bunch of stories so I was kinda disappointed. I didn’t know this was just a bunch of samples.
Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/4-pages-16-bars/4-pages-16-bars-a-visual-mixtape/description
Tales of the 399
This comic was made by students at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It’s basically little stories about themselves and a few of them get deep. It’s some nice introspection here. The art wasn’t top notch, but what did I really expect? A lot. My expectations were high for no reason.
Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jeffmcclelland/tales-of-the-399/description
Black Stories Matter
This was a comic that featured black-centric stories written by mostly black people I think. This joint was not good. Allow me to break it down: We have at least five bad comics and at least five confusing ones. There’s a bit of overlap. One thing I can guarantee is you will not be able to guess the plot twists of some of these stories. But you will get angry at them.
Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ramongil/black-stories-matter/description
4 Pages 16 Bars: A Visual Mixtape Vol. 07
Basically the same as the other except this cover shows a black girl who is about to either rap, breakdance, or shoot some sort of blast out of her hands. And there are some good-looking snippets in here too.
Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/4-pages-16-bars/4-pages-16-bars-a-visual-mixtape-vol-07/description
A Taste of Home: A Cooking Anthology
This anthology has stories based around cooking, with some even featuring recipes! And these are whole stories. This has the best overall art of any of these I’ve read so far. A few of these stories will give you that nice homey feeling. They’ll also make you hungry, then you’ll remember you can’t cook what the people in the comic did, and then you will go get Taco Bell.
Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/levelgroundcomics/a-taste-of-home-a-cooking-anthology?ref=profile_created
The Greatest Hits: A Comics Mixtape
Same publisher as above, but this time the theme is music! Art is still fire but it don’t hit the same cause it’s harder to imagine how something sounds. I can imagine taste pretty well though. Oh wait they have a playlist at the end. I had forgotten.
Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/levelgroundcomics/the-greatest-hits-a-comics-mixtape/description
Southern Gothic Vol. 1
Yeah this was porn. I thought it would be a little racy like an HBO or Showtime but nah it’s not. It starts off silly then it gets wild. And gory too, some of these stories just answer the unasked question, “What if there were titties on the Twilight Zone?” And this was fairy tale themed so every other comic was either Goldilocks or Little Red Riding Hood. No you will not get an inside screenshot. You lucky I’m even dropping the link.
Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bendunn-silvercross/southern-gothic-vol1/description