3 out of 5

Well, we’ll see how these quarterly specials go.  I do dig that V’go is seemingly trying to dig up some old school charm lately (someone realized they’d lost credibility, I suppose, frequently not being mentioned in the same list of indie stars as Dark Horse and Image), with these anthologies and the Strange Sports jam that’s happening concurrently; non-ongoing series used to be Vertigo’s bread n’ butter during their hey-dey, with the superstars like Preacher and Transmet and whatever Sandman nonsense was going on the exceptions.  But at some point, everyone wanted to be the Next Big Ongoing.  Anyhow, we got the color-themed quarterlies, which were interesting but uneven, and Pop! feels like it’s off to a better start than those, as it’s slightly more focused – no one gets too cute with the theme – but the quality of the stories overall are still half and half.  There’s also no one-page editorial explanation of the concept this time, and while, sure, we get it – include the sound effect ‘Pop’ – faceless anthologies (lacking that editorial greeting or conclusion) always sort of bug me.  To be fair, in its stead we get Nathan Fox’s opening tale, ‘Ekoh,’ which incorporates the table of contents into the art, and that’s pretty cool.

I could give you the bit-by-bit rundown here, but especially with shorts, your mileage may vary.  I will say that, as with most of the color issues, the biggest problem here is that tone is all over the place, from weird (Ekoh, Something in the Water) to cute (Pop-Up) to indiefied (Ray’s Bachelor Party) to horror (Earwig Out)…  Which means something for everyone, but also means everyone’s probably going to find something(s) they don’t like.  Still, as I’ve probably mentioned elsewhere, I support this editorial direction from Vertigo, and despite getting an average vibe out of these quarterlies, they’re worth checking out to keep an eye on what’s hopefully an era of adjustment for the publisher, maybe maybe finding their way back to the confident cool they had in the late 90s / early 00s.