Books

Flight: Volume Seven (Anthology)

By Leroy Douresseaux
August 2, 2010 - 20:45

Flight Volume Seven cover image is courtesy of barnesandnoble.com.

Flight: Volume 7 is the latest edition of the comics anthology, which features work from a wide range of cartoonists, comic book creators, animation industry veterans, and webcomics creators.  Edited by Kazu Kibuishi, Flight was launched in 2004 at Image Comics (which published the first two volumes) before moving on to Villard Books.

Each volume of Flight offers short stories that generally reflect sort of a creative “flight of fancy,” in which the inventions of daydreams and wandering imaginations are presented in the comics form.  Some of Flight’s contributors are emerging talents, and some of the stories are stand-alone tales, although a few of them are continuing adventures (such as Kean Soo’s Jellaby and Michel Gagné’s The Saga of Rex).

Like earlier volumes, Flight: Volume Seven offers stories that are some combination of science fiction and fantasy, but that are told as comedies, bedtime stories, fairy tales and fables.  There are plenty of anthropomorphic and funny animal stories and a historical piece.  It all makes for one of best comic books you’ll read all year.  There is not a bad story in this bunch, and some of them are flat out fantastic.

Flight opens with the latest chapter of Michel Gagné’s Moebius-like, The Saga of Rex, entitled “The Harvest,” which is beautiful and surreal and beautifully surreal.  It is followed by two Eisner Award-worthy stories, Kazu Kibuishi’s “The Courier: Shortcut” and Justin Gerard’s “Live Bait” (which Pixar could turn into a fantastic film).  JP Ahonen delivers a gem in “Kenneth Shuri and the Big Sweep,” which is even better than the Shuri tale in Vol. 6 (which itself was pretty good).  My personal favorite is Bannister and Grimaldi’s flawless “Career Day,” the story of a knight and his little brother who is playing observer (which I’ve read several times).

I feel as if I’m doing a disservice to the rest of the contributors by not mentioning their work (like Paul Harmon and his excellent “King of the Beasts: What’s Yours is Mine!”).  I’ll have to leave it at this:  Flight: Volume Seven is so good you’ll want to read it again and again.

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Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12