4 out of 5

A tight, bright, and willfully brutal kick-off to a promising anthology series, Xino was something of a return for the on-again, off-again Oni imprint, and successfully looked to their roots as a bit more of an underground publisher, updating the vibe with a nice cast of artists and writers from the current indie stables. The cagey press around Xino – not really stating what it’s about -has a tone reminiscent of classic Vertigo, but that’s good news: anthologies are tough; classic Vgo made some of the better ones; and editor Zach Soto definitely helps keep this thing reigned, with a focus on invasive tech, and a tone that’s willing to let stories push a bit beyond the usual Twilight Zone twists, which helps differentiate that focus from the billions of sci-fi books with a similar one.

Melissa Flores’ and Daniel Irizarri’s opener is probably the most mundane thing here, with an eye-surgery-gone-wrong story reminiscent of any given ghost-in-the-machine spin. There’s a weird discrepancy between people over-responding to and not responding to events in the tale, with Flores often just “telling” us what’s going on, and the visuals following up. It’s not a bad story, just underwhelmingly like others in this vein. However, while it’s good to start with a bang, I can appreciate Xino doing so with a minor tale instead, as it acts – visually, tonally – as a primer, for the meaner and weirder things to come.

Meaner comes in the form of Christopher Condon’s and Nick Cagnetti’s entry, which, again, isn’t a new idea – a gamer tries a new game which turns out to be a bit more immersive than realized – but there’s a very grindhouse vibe to how far the creative duo takes things, and is a good example of using compressed pacing and some expected story norms to barrel ahead effectively.

Jordan Thomas leans in to artist Shaky Kane’s clunky weirdness quite perfectly, for the silliest tale in the book, but in keeping with the Xino spirit by being rather aggressively tunnel vision with its snipe of conservative hysteria in the red scare 60s.

Lastly, Phil Hester’s mini-epic dystopic utopia tale closer is a reminder of why Hester remains on my radar: this is probably too dense to be perfect, but that’s also why I love it, as it’s a kind of text + pictures layering that only comics can deliver, and rewards a patient, soak-it-in reading.

All of the art employs a stylized, angle line that’s very much early Oni – Mahfood, Hester himself – and a somewhat garish color palette that syncs with the book’s vibe.

A good anthology by any standard, but also a book with just a clear and bold presentation, backed up by quality contents.