This month I am posting a review of a different self-published comic book each day for the rest of the month! Here is an archive of the books reviewed so far!
Today I am featuring Inbound #3, which is an anthology of The Boston Comics Roundtable.
The third issue of Inbound, the anthology of the Boston Comics Roundtable (think an art collective of indie Boston comic creators), is devoted to telling tales of love - unrequited, requited, tainted - all sorts of love!
Underneath a great wraparound cover by Matt Reidsma, the stories in this 72-page book (which costs $8) are:
* Untitled - Franklin Einspruch
* "First Kiss" - Robert Sergel
* "Puppy Love Eternal" - Aya Rothwell
* "Fear" - Chris O'Neill
* "Just an Old Fashioned Zombie Love Song" - Eric Boeker
* "Wish Me Luck" - Donna Martinez and Joesph Peters
* "Colossa" - Braden Lamb
* "An Afternoon Session" - Hyun Supul
* "A Winter's Prelude" - Roho
* "The Prince" - Carl Tsui
* "From Afar" - Dan Mazur
* "A Gothic Romance" - James Mobius
The collection is really a strong group of stories overall, although, of course, with all anthologies, some stories will be better than others (although, hopefully no stories are BAD).
My favorites are probably Chris O'Neil's "Fear," where we see how a guy with very little self-confidence views the events of a date compared against what actually happened on the date, Hyun Supul's "An Afternoon Session," where Supul (who is totally evoking the Luna Brothers) shows the Queen from Snow White going to a therapist and likely my favorite of the whole bunch, "From Afar" by Dan Mazur, which is a time travel story that plays with certain genre cliches beautifully (plus his art is quite strong) as he examines the fact that the same impulse that could force a guy to do drastic things in the name of love might also force other reactions.
Einspurch's strong one-pager is the only sample page I was able to find...
The Boston Comics Roundtable's web site appears to be down at the moment. That's a shame, as that's the only place where I know that you can buy a copy of the book. But if/when they get it up, you can get a copy there (and presumably they'll have other samples).
Here's their address if you want to just remember it for the future...
http://www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com
Overall, it was a good anthology.
The Comics Roundtable sent me a copy of Inbound #3. If you would like to participate in the month with your self-published comic, there probably is not enough time to be featured this month, but if you mail them, I'll still review them eventually! Just check out the Review Copies section to see where to mail a review copy of your comic.