Happy Endings
May 18th, 2003edited by Diana Schutz
ISBN: 1569718202
I picked up this slim anthology (just under a hundred pages) because I had read and liked several of the contributors — James Kochalka, Craig Thompson, and Jason Hall & Matt Kindt — and the idea that contributors were just told to do something that would work with the title appealed.
Sure enough I liked the contributions by the artists I already knew. Of the others, I liked Farel Dalrymple’s (I will be getting pop gun war when the first issues are reprinted, as I missed it the first time around) and Tony Millionaire’s “Sock Monkey” was pretty good. Most of the others I could take or leave, and I positively disliked Frank Miller’s contribution.
I find the problem with anthologies of any kind is that they are often uneven, and that is the case here. At ten bucks for fifteen stories, this book is worth it only if you are fan of several of the contributors. I think the strongest piece is probably Thompson’s “Barnyard Animals” so his fans — and if you aren’t a fan of his stuff, you should at least pick this up and look at his story — should make an effort to seek it out.
