Panel Anthologies – Panel #1

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Panel #1

Well, here it is, the missing O.P. (original Panel). It seems silly to review this in the conventional sense, as this is the definition of a labor of love, probably taking years to complete. What good does it do to poo-poo this early work, especially when practically everybody in here has gone on to do better work? Instead I’ll just talk about the contents, as plenty of people will probably never see this in its current form (although there are maybe, possibly some plans to post this issue online). All the stories in here are followed up with pretty thorough bios about the creators, or at least they were thorough at the time. There’s also a script, which is always interesting for people who want to see how the sausage is made. As for the stories, there’s an untitled story by Steve Black which is a hodge-podge of seemingly unrelated words and images, a preview story of a wacky university with robots and teenagers by James Hanrahan and Tim Fischer, one oddly placed panel by Dansen Stahl, the story of a classic con by Andy Bennett, a brief story about the future by Tony Goins and Steve Black, a lovely text piece about a local wrestling show by Tony Goins, a heartbreaking story about getting old by Tony Goins, the perfect way to regain fame by Dara Naraghi and Tim McClurg, and (this is how I can tell that this must be old) a series of surprisingly unfunny strips by Tom Williams. Just in case you were like me and thought he must have always been awesome. In future issues the art is better and the writing is crisper, but there’s only one first issue of any series. Oh, and there wasn’t even a theme that year! A minor thing maybe, but it sure seems odd now.