3 out of 5

Injury is a bit of a mess.  Akin to a Ted May-centric anthology, every element is touched by the creator in some regard (and indeed issue 1 was billed as ‘Ted May’s Injury’), but as Jeff Wilson’s true-life 80s high school tales take up more and more real estate, the book feels like it loses a bit of its overseer vibe, the (for now) final issue coming across as scattered indeed, the skewed-reality of May filtered down to a short Beast Biplane store and a back cover bit that would’ve felt at home in his Men’s Feelings mag.

When Injury kicks off, though, with Buenaventura’s thick paper stock, it’s a treat: Jeff’s stoner contribution (scripted and drawn by May, but story-ed by Jeff) is taken up just to its point and punchline, and then Jeff Robards gives a very Allred look to Ted’s corporate secret agent bit, Manleau, which is the gloriously goofy 70s-ish flip-side to Jeff’s stuff.  The Perils of Heracles – shorts about Hercules’ stinky clones – appear for some laughs.  Issue 2 follows suit; 3 is where Wilson’s tale starts to fall into the indie indulgence scene (a “and you’re telling us this why?” kind of story), though it gets leveled out a bit by the first Biplane entry, which is supremely weird in a good way but becomes truly hard to read in Mike Reddy’s scruffy linework.

Then three years pass.  Injury wasn’t on a monthly schedule by any means, but this was still quite a break.  I believe BP might’ve folded in that time, leaving issue 4 to Alternative Comics; still a clean printing, bit the slightly less thick covers and pages and completely blank inside covers cheapen the experience a tad, which is combined with it being – as previously mentioned – the least exciting issue of the series.

May’s an interesting guy who exists on the weirder edge of the slice-of-life scene, which is a pretty unique position to occupy.  Injury kicked off with a lot of energy and ideas, but its connecting strands loosened a bit too much over the course of its short (as of now) publication.