Popgun Vol. 1
Anthology fans will find a lot more variety and accessibility in Image's mammoth "mix-tape" Popgun Volume One, which reads like a 450-page answer to Villard's lovely Flight collections. The contents run from extended stories like Derek Hunter's 15-page Powerpuff Girls-esque goofy-girl-hero comic Gamma Rae to one-page posters and smirking faux-ads like Danny Hellman's sly, smirking ant-farm solicitation. While there are some kid-friendly stories, the tone runs generally darker, with ninja battles, noir murder mysteries, ghosts, vampires, monsters, zombies, and robot-on-robot violence cropping up amid the odd, alternative superheroes. Virtually all the work is colorful, entertaining, and immediate, with a strong sense of experimentation and play throughout; it's hard, in this rich an environment, for any one work to stand out. But Andy Kuhn's "Mexican Wrestler Funnies," in which two wrestlers trade Monty Python-esque barbs like "It is I who will make love to your corpse, with a Waring blender… set to puree!" is pretty hilarious, and Adrian Dominguez and Matthew Weldon's anime-influenced teen-hero story "Ellie Saves The World" is particularly gorgeous. But then, the wide variety of tones and visual styles guarantees something for just about everyone… A- --The Onion AV ClubThe sheer diversity in style of art, lettering, layout -- everything -- is enough to keep neophytes and nerds alike rapt. The work is at turns touching, hilarious, suspenseful and then some. This is a fine collection. 9/10 --Under the Radar Magazine[POPGUN is] a comic book mixtape that will keep the art junkies very happy ... acrazy collection of cutting edge comic book art. POPGUN pulls selections from some of the top indie artists in comics ... Aspiring artists and fans will want to flip through POPGUN for the inspiring images that demonstrate just how much talent is floating around comics these days. --Blair Butler, G4's Attack of the Show