Flight 5 Edited by Kazu Kibuishi
So if you’ve been reading this site for a while, then you must have seen this selection coming. I ran off at the mouth keyboard about this series earlier this year, but the release of Flight 5 this year bears singling out. This series keeps getting better and better, and I think that’s saying something as editor Kazu Kibuishi began the series already possessing a strong editorial voice. I’m not sure from where his comics submissions come, but I don’t envy him the job of whittling down his list. I am glad he’s doing it though.
It’s difficult to cover all the reasons why Flight 5 is so fantastic a read as it’s been written and drawn by so many different hands. Instead, it’s easier to cover just a few of the highlights, then sit back and let you discover all the other gems to be found.
Which I’ll do now…after the jump.
So, if I were forced at gunpoint* to pick a favorite story, I would choose "The Dragon" by Reagan Lodge.
The story is a crossroads of Samurai meets enormous war-faring robot. Not quite steampunk, but the feeling is similar, we follow an anthropomorphic fox with a taste for yams named Wyit as he and his human companions, represented by Sidna, the group's leader. They are scouting out a town and trying to arrange safe passage, and it is through this attempt that we are introduced to Jin, a large Samurai, has agreed to guide Wyit and Sidna's group through the region. But there's danger afoot, and Wyit is assigned to stay with Jin while Sidna scouts out the town.
Now, it's pretty clear, or seems so in this story, that Wyit is not a fighter. At least, he is not first-and-foremost a fighter, so his pairing with Jin is as much for his safety as anything else. Unfortunately, he and Jin stumble upon and are then hunted by a 10 story robot tank. And here all hell breaks loose.
"The Dragon" is the story that nearly didn't happen. As Reagan explains on his website in a post dated April 4, 2008:
Here's a sample of what I've been doing all this time. Down below you'll notice some samples from that fabledly massive Flight Comics story of mine I started in 2006, lost all the files to a hard drive failure, then completely re-inked and re-colored in 2007.
So, I have no idea what the originals looked like, but the results from the re-inked and re-colored panels are gorgeous** and may cause you to be thankful for the occasional devastating computer failure. That, or you'll be just that much more impressed with Reagan's work.
Other highlights include a full-length Delilah Dirk story, "The Aquaduct," a panel-lovers dream story titled "The Messenger" which might remind you savvy gamers a little of the new game Mirror's Edge (hmmm...), and "Two Kids," a particularly haunting story of two kids who are lost in the woods, from Bannister, whom constant readers should recognize as the brains behind another one of my favorite Flight stories, "So Far So Close" (Flight 3).
You'll never regret picking this book up, and I don't just mean the stories. Consider this, it's $25 brand-spanking-new and contains 22 stories. Each story is roughly the size of a single run comic. Single runs usually cost between $2-3 per issue, so...you're making out like a bandit here. Do you love Kazu as much as I do yet***? Are you getting there? Do you see how this man is trying to give you all comic goodness you can possibly handle?
I wish I had the time to tell you everything wonderful about this book, but I don't, and you probably have other things to do as well, but believe me when I tell you that this collection deserves needs to be a part of any graphic novel fan's library. These are short stories beautifully told and collected by a man who is quickly becoming a modern master at his craft, and presented to you. Now really, what more could you ask for than that?
Not too much, as you'll see when you open up a copy, and that's what makes Flight 5 one of the best graphic novels of 2008.
*Or by a little old lady yielding an umbrella, or any threatening event between these two extremes.
**And as you know from reading here before, I'm a sucker for great panel work. Some guys like muscle cars, some like Football or Italian food, I geek out on panels. No lie. This might explain more about me than I'd like to admit. Hey, let's change the topic now, shall we?
***You can't. YOU CAN'T!
Leave a comment