MYRIAD is a mixed bag, as many anthologies are; sometimes the stories hit their mark and sometimes they don’t. Running for six issues, the book showcases five stories in six parts; each story is in a different genre and by a different creative team. The only way that you could really take a look at this book is to take each story individually…
In ChiSai we have an urban revenge thriller with a leather-clad ninja-like protagonist, the closest the book comes to a super-hero story. Written by Approbation Comics’ Bart Thompson, its shaping up well at the half-way point – the story’s moving on apace and Steve Fox’s art work is improving by the page, shaping into a fittingly dark style reminiscent of Peter Eastman and Kevin Laird’s early work on TMNT. The only worry I have here is that there seems to be an awful lot of story left to tell in the next three issues…but I guess that’s what sequels are for. Grade: A-
Next up we’ve got the big sci-fi drama Lineage, created by Jay Jacobs and Chris A. Tsuda, with simply fantastic art from Tsuda. Its got an interesting premise which involves the encroachment of a fantasy-like world into a futuristic high-tech one, with an operative of each world caught in the middle. I’ve got high hopes for this series, and its another one that I wish has more time to flesh out the characters and worlds a little more – and that’s usually a sign of a good story! Grade: B+
The Adventures of Molly-Be-Damned, by Richard Nelson ,Eli Livery and Brian Laframboise is a fun enough pirate yarn, capturing a nice sense of derring-do and swash-buckling but there seem to be a few too many logic-jumps and coincidences in the second and third instalments; it probably didn’t help that the first issue felt a lot like backstory that might have been better spread throughout the tale. Otherwise a solid enough effort – and again, the art team of Livery and Lafraboise suit the story matter perfectly. Grade: B-
Discount Stories by John P Ward and Steven Doty is a series of vignettes set in a...well, a discount store – and much to my surprise it’s one of the more interesting series in the book, somehow reminiscent of Troy Hickman’s Common Grounds without the superpowers. Nicely written and paced, each story stands alone and yet fits in with subsequent instalments – although the series is badly let down by some flat-looking artwork which pulls the grading down. Grade: B+
Finally we have Frail, by Christopher J O’Bryant, Rich A Molinelli and Joseph W Armour, easily the best series in the book. Excellently illustrated and well-scripted, it’s the one story that I keep coming back to re-read. Even after several run-throughs I’m not entirely certain where its going – but I can’t wait to get there! What seems to start as a love story quickly turns darker with a murder…but when a witness becomes violent himself, things begin to spiral out of control; it’s a truly original piece and worth the price of admission alone. Grade: A+
All in all, as I said, a mixed bag but without any true failures in there. It’s a bold experiment from a new publisher, especially as it eschews the traditional super-hero fare and spreads itself across a number of genres. Pick up the book; if you don’t see it on the shelf at your local store, ask the owner to backorder it through Previews, or order it direct from www.approbationcomics.com – overall it’s a good read and the guys that start in the small press today are the guys who run the big companies tomorrow…
