ChiSai by Bart Thompson & Steve Fox
Lineage by Jay Jacobs & Chris A. Tsuda
The Adventures of the Molly-Be-Damned by Richard Nelson & Eli Ivory
Discount Stories by John Ward & Steve Doty
Frail by Chris O’Bryant & James Sandman
Published by Approbation
Diamond code MAR052592
Reviewed by Christian Read
Approbation Comics are a small company who’ve been around for a few years now, publishing out of San Antonio, Texas. As of May this year, they’ve released an anthology title with the name Myriad, which carries five stories over six issues.
It’s very hard to give small press a poor review. Budget tend to amount to coins found under the couch or stolen from unsuspecting grannies. Publicity rarely transcends the level of screaming at strangers on the bus. Or posting online to a community who seem rather deeply set on ignoring new work. Plus a distribution system that mimics the economics of daylight muggings all make this kind of venture like pulling teeth. They don’t need bad, or even lukewarm, press.
But it must be said, the first issue of Myriad is a work of wildly varying quality.
ChiSai is first off the rank with Bart Thompson doing the writing and Steve Fox the rest. As far as I can tell, ChiSai (which I always thought was a style of Chinese dress) takes place in a Mad Max-style Road Warrior future. Or perhaps it is contemporary, it’s all a bit mangled. A evil business man, we assume he’s evil because he is in shadows behind a desk, posing evilly, orders a motorcycle gang to destroy a construction site. He must have a good reason but damned if I know what it is. Chi Sai, and again, we assume it’s Chi Sai because that’s the name of the strip, rather ineptly beats up that gang. The lady in question is probably a ninja and not a roaming latex-fetishist, although we can’t be sure. At the very least, we don’t get bad dialogue but we do get a plot that is, to be charitable, bare bones. The chiaroscuro art of Fox is a rarity in that while backgrounds and perspective, those invisible essentials, are all pleasingly rendered in a smooth grey tone, complete with some nicely dramatic paneling, his characters are all over the shop. Chi Sai herself seems to shift design from panel to panel.
The Adventures of the Molly-Be-Damned by Richard Nelson & Eli Ivory goes next and is a step up in quality and ambition. The adventures of the good ship Molly-Be-Damned, and hell with you if you don’t love that name, is rather deftly rendered by Mr. Ivory. While there’s some struggles with panel design and some inept FX, here is a neatly, crisply told with some suitably piratical, knavishly evil villains and clearly morally superior hero. The story, concerning the cursed crew, gives us a compelling set-up with dialogue that is just over the top enough to work without becoming campy or, well, shite.
John Ward writes Discount Stories and does it well. Letting us peer inside they grey meat of a greeter for a large suburban shopping chain, it deftly gives us a story of a man clearly driven by morbid isolation and some hammering damage only hinted at. Sadly Steve Doty, with his bulky and poorly proportioned characters, and shifting sense of paneling is clearly the wrong illustrator for the story. His work is uneven and unschooled and detracts from the writing remarkably.
Frail is lovingly drawn, with considerably beautiful lines, by James Sandman. The talking heads story is the hardest thing in the world to make look interesting and Sandman does it. Admittedly, mainly by focusing on his very pretty leading lady, but he also gives us a great look at some of the old ultra-violence. Chris O’Bryant writes a convincing conversation and rapidly changes the tone of the story but leaves you wondering what, precisely, you were reading all along. A tricky ploy that can backfire easily but I suspect we are in safe hands although areduction in word-count wouldn’t go astray.
Lineage by Jay Jacobs & Chris A. Tsuda is, to be honest, a bit of a mess. I like a story that matches and mixes genre as much as the next Mieville fan. However, when you start with far future SF, throw in a superhero and then chuck in alternate worlds, only to finish with the rather uninspiring appearance of a Tolkieny magician who happens to be an elf, well, you have to wonder whose hand is on this tiller. Is this going to meld genres to create something new or just serve up a mélange of cliché? Thankfully, the art is mostly solid, clearly the most mainstream in intent, if getting a little lazy by the end. But the story is wordy and leaps around, trying to cover too much, too quickly.
I can’t say I recommend Myriad whole-heartedly. Subject matter seems to diverse for an anthology, with no major theme tying it together. It’s a book by new-comers and sometimes this shows pretty obviously, with rookie mistakes and some sub-par art. Frail and Discount Stories at the moment seem to be stand outs, but perhaps the other stories will find their feet. For those of you looking for something new, who like your comics in the mainstream, who aren’t tied down to just superheroes, and like your stories crisp and quick, you may well find something here. Also, supporting a small publisher helping new talent get established is hardly the worst thing you could spend cash on.
Myriad #1 might not be great, but it sometimes gets close to being pretty good.
Christian Read is a professional writer, recently moved from Sydney to New York. His award-winning comic work includes Dunwich: A Tale of the Cthulhu Mythos, The Watch, Eldritch Kid as well as contributions to Star Wars Tales and Dee Vee and several projects forthcoming. Phosphorescent.net for more.
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