Approbation Comics offers us something that was once the norm in comic books: an anthology comic. Each issue offers readers five stories, each eight or nine pages long. The third issue, of a planned six, continues the stories begun in issue one.
Chisai (Thompson and Fox) is the first story, and it seems to get the most cover space as well. I wonder if that’s because it’s the most conventional of the five, telling the story of an Electra like character. Issue three’s chapter is the best yet, as it introduces her personal life and so gives readers a chance to see who she is and what makes her unique.
Lineage (Jacobs and Tsuda) is a science fiction story, though is blends in some fantasy-like elements. In the year 2314 an alien world replaces a major Earth city with a forest, destroying its 22 million inhabitants. With the forest it sent a caretaker, O’Ryn. Earth’s Global Defence Administration (GDA) sends in a superhero like agent named Janus to investigate and before long Janus and O’Ryn are on the lam, hiding from the GDA, while the forest shows some impressive defensive abilities. The third chapter picks up from the last issue, developing the relationship between the two leads and introducing a new character into the mix.
The Adventures of the Molly Be Damned (Nelson, Ivory, and Laframboise) tells a pirate-horror story. Even though Watchmen’s Black Freighter showed that piracy would be a great vehicle for a horror story, and horror stories have been getting more and more popular, it was only this year that there has been any real move towards developing one – two actually. Image’s Sea of Red is one, and Myriad’s Molly is the other. The first two chapters were a bit convoluted, with a cursed pirate ship, poisoned swords, and arranged marriages, but this issue does a good job of tying the many plot threads together. It involves a riddle contest and a pineapple-faced demon, but everyone is on the same path.
Discount Stories (Ward and Doty) gives us slice of life stories of employees at a US Mart. The first story, of an embittered retiree turned greeter, seemed a little forced to me. The second, about a high school drop out was better, and this third story improves again, this time adding some humour as it tells the story of two women with so much in common they despise each other.
The last story is Frail (O’Bryant, Molinelli, Armour) – to date they have all been told in the same order – which traces a circle of violence as it spirals out from a killing in the first chapter. In part three Dr. Laymon, the psychoanalyst crippled in chapter two, has had to turn over much of his life’s control to his wife, who then discovers his mistress. She doesn’t take it well.
The issue also includes a short humour piece, a parody of the Twelve Days of Christmas (Messner-Loebs), which expands the title into one more genre.
All in all the impression I was left with on finishing issue three was how well all of the stories were coming together, and that the artists and writers were really getting a handle on their stories. The same people have worked on each chapter, except Frail, which has had a different art team with each chapter. O’Bryant’s writing, though, especially his conversational writing, has improved a lot since chapter one.
Given that short stories were the staple of comics for so long, I have often wondered where they all went. I would really like to see an ongoing series (Detective Comics is really the only mainstream comic to include any short stories). So I hope Approbation has some success here. They have cast a wide net, bringing together a lot of genres between two covers, so you are bound to find something you like.
