Comics Anthologies: an Appreciation

A foundation of my experience as a reader and author

Most of the stories in my new collection, Six Treasures of the Spiral: Comics Formed under Pressure, were first published in anthologies. Sometimes I submitted, sometimes I was invited, heck, sometimes I even got paid!

a handful of anthologies I have contributed to over the years

In the world of indy comics, anthologies have always played an important role in fostering new talent, serializing longer work, and introducing new artists and trends to readers all over the world.

When I was getting into comics back in the late 1980s (pre-internet), I would scour comic book stores and used book stores for anthologies of any sort. I studied up on early newspaper cartoonists in the still-impressive Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics. I discovered obscure underground cartoonists in a dusty newsprint paperback collection of The Best of Bijou Comics. I read Julie Doucet for the first time in a one-off anthology called Heck! And I first encountered the weird and wonderful world of alternative and undergound manga in books like Sake Jock and Comics Underground: Japan.

When Jessica and I first met, we bonded over our love for this obscure anthology.

And when I started making my own comics, anthologies were some of the few places I got my work seen outside my little circle of comics friends. It’s a real boost of confidence when you’re a young artist to be invited to contribute to someone’s anthology, whether it’s a photocopied zine or a hardcover from a major publisher.

Despite their importance (to me an my generation, at least), anthologies are a headache to put together and they rarely sell well—they're a real labor of love.

So: THANK YOU to all of you editors and publishers who make the effort!

The anthologies the published the comics featured in Six Treasures of the Spiral are:

• Blurred Vision

• Hotwire

• Rosetta

• Ink Brick

• Revista Larva (Colombia)

• Flashed: Sudden Stories in Comics and Prose

• Dirty Stories

• Top Shelf

• La Hutte du Déhu (Amiens, France)

• …Plus Tower Records' PULSE! Magazine, not techincally anthology but another important early venue for cartoonists of my generation.

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Six Treasures of the Spiral: Comics Formed Under Pressure, is out now. Ask your local bookstore to order a copy!

Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review, calling it “an instant classic.” (Read the whole review here.)