If you’re looking to gift a graphic novel this season, may I suggest any of the volumes in the FLIGHT line? The anthology series focuses on the whimsical and otherworldly, but grounded just enough not to be outrageous and over-the-top. A sense of childlike wonder and innocence permeates all the volumes, even if no true discernible theme arises.
Project creator Kazu Kibuishi bookends FLIGHT: VOLUME ONE with “Air and Water” and “Cooper,” two imaginative adventures featuring a boy, his talking dog and their experiences in flight. The first story is funny, while the second is more fanciful (and wordless).
Other standouts in this debut collection include the collage art of Jen Wang’s “Paper and String” and Jacob Magraw-Mickelson’s “Dummy Brother,” which sport influences of origami and cartography, respectively. And then there are imaginative stories of a flying whale, dirigible pirates, cute penguins, a girl who wakes up to find she’s sprouted angel wings and the self-explanatory “Tug McTaggart, Circus Detective.”
FLIGHT: VOLUME TWO is bigger, and even better. Doug TenNaple’s “Solomon Fix” is an inspired creation: a catlike creature who holds a demented tea party for his mentally impaired Cousin Donkey. Khangle’s “Monster Slayers” traverse the earth, looking for beasties to butcher, in order to reap serious monetary rewards. Somehow, they always come up short.
“Dance of the Sugar Plums” by Don Hertzfeldt looks like — and very well may be — stick figures drawn in pencil on Post-It Notes, with seemingly random captions attached. Kibuishi’s own “The Orange Grove” is a bittersweet tale of a motherless boy experiencing first love — and first heartbreak. It’s a real wrencher, beautifully told.
A cyclist chases after a hot girl he’ll soon wish he hadn’t in Rodolphe Guenoden’s twist-ending charmer “The Ride,” while Doug Holgate imagines the space exploits of the Russian dog known as “Laika.”
Bannister’s “Dust on the Shelves” chronicles a comic-book geek’s infatuation for a cute girl who — gasp! — likes manga! I assume it’s based on a true story; I sure hope it is. “Béisbol” is Richard Pose’s account of a Cuban youth who agrees to keep an old man in the neighborhood company for a week. The boy’s doing it for a new baseball, but learns lasting life lessons instead.
In both books — and later volumes in the series — the selections alternate between narratives and mood pieces, and it’s surprising how many of them tell their stories without words. Few duds exist within its pages, and it’s to FLIGHT’s benefit that the creators approach the work with a passion to please on a base level: No self-mocking irony, no saucy entendres — just the pure pleasure of words marrying images to tell a smart story. That itself is beautiful. —Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• FLIGHT EXPLORER: VOLUME 1
• FLIGHT: VOLUME FIVE
Related posts:
- Flight Explorer: Volume 1
- Flight: Volume Five
- Showcase Presents Legion of Super-Heroes: Volume 1
- Out of Picture: Art from the Outside Looking In — Volume 2
- Showcase Presents Hawkman: Volume 1
