4 out of 5

With each passing issue of A1, I would cautiously crack the cover, half-expecting a final ‘The End’ to pop up on one of the three ongoing tales in the anthology, for the the Next Issue blurb to expose next week’s new addition.  It wasn’t until issue four that I finally sort of accepted what Dave Elliott was doing with his third incarnation of A1, and thus did that sense of caution shift to anticipation: A1 is a weird and fresh attempt at the anthology genre, and I now thirst for the next issue.

So here’s where things are funky:

1. That the stories don’t go for an easy ‘wow’ factor.  This has been a characteristic of A1 since the start, so I put that down to Elliott’s sense of what to include and however his editing affects the split of the stories.  It’s what’s made me dig Atomeka over, say, the current DHP series – while you could say ‘Carpe Diem,’ the middle strip in this edition of A1, has a wow factor, I feel that that’s the style of the strip itself, vs. most fresh (or relatively unknown) faces using the short story exposure to grab their audience by jamming a story hook device down our face in the first couple panels (or, more damningly, by explaining that thing you want us to think is cool in a front-loaded narration bubble).  This can work fine until you get to part two and realize that all the meat and potatoes were already served, and all that’s left are the dry, butterless potato crumbles womp womp.  A1 / Titan Comics do right with the book’s presentation – Titan is using some mighty fine printers or whatever process to put out books with a totally notable amount of ‘pop’ amongst their rack peers – the paper stock, the color quality, whatever, these books stick out in the right way.  Perhaps this falls on the publisher’s history starting with art books before getting into comics.  Whatever way, I hope it proves to be a sustainable model, economically, for their comics.  Especially combined with A1’s striking design – black left border, futuristic, flat font with issue info, the whole of the cover taken up by one of the interior artist’s full-page, central-focused drawing – it’s hard to not at least let your eye dawdle on the book.  That’s where you SHOULD be putting your wow factor, especially with the material to back it up.  So my hope, really, since A1 has managed this general quality before (maybe A1 v.2 a little less, but the heart was there), was just… to do it again.  And the books didn’t disappoint.

2. Dave Elliott writes 66% of this.  I remember reading an editorial blurb in one of the A1 books explaining that the anthology (and imprint, perhaps) was meant to be an outlet for Elliott and some friends’ writing.  But as the project grew and made a name for itself, he was stepping back more and more into that over-seeing position, less and less time for his own work.  Dave’s name is on two of the three tales covered in the 6 issues – ‘Weirding Willows’ and ‘Odyssey.’  It’s cool as a longtime supporter of Atomeka to see him finally get the majority page count; it’s equally weird as an anthology fan, where you see either all stories one author, or all stories different authors.  The relative 2:1 imbalance here seems like it’ll make for a fractured reading experience, but it works perfectly.  Weirding is a little goofy but with dramatic undertones, Odyssey is fantastic but mostly straight-faced.  These emotional notes end up perfectly buffering the totes off-the-wall Carpe Diem, written by W.H.Rauf.  Another nod toward A1 for providing the desired variation of an anthology but with more cohesion than the norm.

3. You can expect the same three stories.  This was part of my cautious feeling.  I love that this appears to be more of an ongoing instead of the mini trades of yesteryear.  This apparently has given Elliott the room to experiment with his format, using 6 issues to tell 3 stories.  I kept worrying one story would drop out or grow too big for its britches, but we get to an acceptable end for each tale by issue 6, with the page count issue to issue absolutely enough for the strips to not have to short the reader for the sake of saving it up for another installment.  ‘Carpe Diem’ possibly concludes, but both ‘Weirding’ and ‘Odyssey’ appear to be part ones.  Will they go off into separate books?  GNs?  Who knows?  But I trust that if A1 continues, Elliott will probably take a similar tack, and that’s awesome.

‘Kay.  Now, shortly, some blurbs about each tale – Elliot and Barnaby Bagenda’s ‘Weirding Willows’ (art, oddly, by Sami Basri on issue 6), colors by Jessica Kholinne, ‘Carpediem’ by Rauf and Rhoald Marcellius, and ‘Odyssey’ by Elliott and Garrie Gastonny, Sakti Yuwono coloring both of these.  The letters seem universally handled by Imam E. Wibowo, which is pretty amazing since each tale has a unique look – ‘Willows’ bold and loud to match its fantasy setting, ‘Carpe’s completely insane color-coded scheme, and ‘Odyssey’s dry and cramped style, again matching the tone.

‘Weirding’ is a fun mashup of various fictional characters – Alice in Wonderland is the daughter of Doctor Moreau, who seems to be a work-for-hire mad scientist with partners Dr. Doolittle and Dr. Hyde, currently working with the Wicked Witch of the West to manufacture some flying monkeys.  Meanwhile, some Jungle Book characters show up in the latest batch of captures with which Moreau intends to tinker, and across the ‘weir’ we have an apparently magic forest populated by talking animals… like Peter the Rabbit and the Alice in Wonderland bunny and Cheshire Cat and sure, here comes Frankenstein’s monster chasing his pet dinosaur.  It’s as all over the map as it sounds, and definitely jumps around in focus, not really having a clear direction after volume 1 except to have laid some groundwork.  But what ties this together is that its done pretty straight-faced, not cheeky.  Instead of building up to character reveals, Elliott just shuffles the names into the mix and moves in – the Weir is a nexus for all these characters, get used to it, there’s a story to tell.  Bagenda’s sketchy art style works fine for the series, though on occasion it seems like our focus should be on something off panel, and some dramatic angles are used in a similar ‘why is our focus there?’ manner.  But on the whole its readable and gives each character a distinct look, something which issue 6’s Sami picks up on easily enough, depicting that issue’s action (a fight, a chase), with a bit better ‘acting’ than a think Bagenda might have.

‘Carpediem’ is awesome, and knows how to do a running gag with just the right amount of variation / breathing time to keep it funny.  We have a team of superheros / super spies, each named after a day of the week and each with a team ‘role’ like sharpshooter or brawler, led by the 8-ball-for-a-head ‘8th Day’ who keeps pairing his team up against a threat of the week, including the maniacal ‘Iron Chef’ and some killer clowns and pirates, each with their own hilarious guff or need to steal 8th Day’s head.  And we get a new Agent Monday each week because he always dies.  Rhoald Marcellius is a freaking godsend – using a Damion Scott’s ishish template of a sort of graffiti-infused freneticism but pissing all over that pisshead’s style-over-readability by making these pages the absolute pinnacle of fun to look at and fun to read.  The way focus is used, the decision of when to break panel borders, and a grand sense (assuredly helped by Rauf in this case) of how to keep 7 characters in action without jumping needlessly around.  Each tale is essentially self-contained, yet you never feel like you’re just reading a gag strip.  However, totally benefits from the shortened page length and break between issues.  Like when a TV show gets extended from 6 to 22 episodes, the proof-of-concept of those initial 6 is generally stronger than when you start buffering.  So I sorta hope Rhoalf and Rauf know how to keep this gem polished.

‘Odyssey’ features ‘Blazing Glory’ and ‘Sharky’ and a whole bunch of mythology that happens between issues.  This was the most difficult to get into of the three, but only because there seemed to be so much going on that led up to each issue.  Things start off well, showing a god of some type suffused into a WWII soldier, and then Elliott does some issue by issue time jumps up to 2011, when ‘Glory’ (that soldier?) is battle Sharky (another god-in-person?) for some reason decided by higher ups.  This wends around 9/11 and then the Occupy movement and, yeah, it has that same fractured sense as ‘Weirding’ but lacks a grounding element or a core character with whom we can side.  Still, Gastonny’s art is clean and interesting, and Elliott keeps the scripts light enough to give you the gist and keep you reading.  So I by no means did not enjoy ‘Odyssey’, I’m just at a loss to explain anything about it, even having read the issues back to back.  Again, like ‘Weirding,’ perhaps this is all groundwork.

Enough?  The main takeaway here is that most anthologies – even the old A1s – lend themselves to a few dud pages, but I was able to read these cover to cover without pause.  ‘Carpediem’ stands on its own while the other two titles might take a bit more time to shape up, but what a refreshing way to get exposed to some newness in your weekly stack.  I’m thrilled to see Atomeka back and hope its new home allows for a long stay.