Fleen Book Corner: F3
What can I say? It’s Flight 3, it’s awesome, it’s got megatalents like Kazu Kibiushi and Kean Soo and Phil Craven editing. Every piece in the book is breathtakingly beautiful to behold.
But it’s taken a bit of bit of a turn this time around. It seems that creators that did light-hearted whimsy in Flight 2 go for something grimmer this time around, and vice versa. Michael Gagné’s Inner Sanctum in F2 featured a little alien-planet fox in a rollicking adventure that was a little dangerous, but all turned out well. In F3‘s Underworld, the fox struggles heroically only to die at the end, and be reborn as something harder. In F2, Bannister presented Dust On The Shelves, a meet-cute story with the love of your life in a comic store; F3‘s So Far, So Close is an almost meet-cute, with the participants parting ways forever.
Kean Soo’s Last Things Last (F2) is a heartbreaking autobiographical story about letting go a loved one; Jellaby: The Tea Party (F3) is lighthearted and fun. Most startling, however, is probably newcomer Azad Injejikian’s Polaris, which starts as a quiet story about a little girl who’s different and just wants to be accepted … and ends with the destruction of all humanity. Great story, though.
So call the theme of F3 “Let’s mix things up” and accept that you’re going to love it. Also, kudos to the entire crew for getting a major publisher, Ballantine, behind F3; it was a coup two years ago to get Flight published by Image, as it put the book into every comic book shop in the country. Ballantine, though — they can put F3 into every bookstore, period. The wider distribution is only going to bring more people to this work, and that’s a great thing.
Finally, thanks to Injejikian, Kibiushi, Johane Matte, and Rodolphe Guenoden, who were kind enough to sketch in my copy at San Diego — inks over pencils, y’all. These people are artists.
That’s kind of a spoiler heavy review, just in case you hadn’t noticed.
By Eric Johnson on 08.03.06 1:42 pm
There are 26 stories in Flight 3. There are four stories mentioned here. You have hours of spoiler-free reading in front of you.
By Gary Tyrrell on 08.03.06 1:53 pm
I bought Flight 3 here in Korea last week… if that gives you any indication of the amount of distribution oomph Ballantine has.
By The William G on 08.03.06 7:31 pm
This is a nice review of the book ! Thanks a lot Gary ! We’l ltry to do even better next time !!
By bannister on 08.18.06 3:49 am
It was a pleasure ot meet you. I’m thrilled you enjoyed the book, and Polaris so much.
best wishes,
azad
By azad on 09.01.06 7:53 pm
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