Random Short Stories By A Future Bestseller
What’s left to say about Brian’s work? It’s alarming to think about how much I must have repeated myself by now, maybe 50 comic reviews in and 20 (ish?) years later. So here’s something: I’ve seen a whole lot of collections of comics by single creators that have appeared in various anthologies over the years. I’m always a fan of the idea; far too many great stories disappear from memory because they were only available in an anthology that had a print run of 20 copies and disappeared forever. But a lot of people, at least some of the time, tend to phone it in for those types of stories. I’ve read several of Brian’s anthologies now, and I’ve never once gotten that impression. Anyway, hey, look at this, it’s a collection of short stories from various anthologies! Brian lists where these first appeared for the curious, and this might be the first time where I don’t think I’ve read even one of these stories before. This one has 11 stories (even though it looks like more when the four panel strips are listed separately), starting with Gilmore Girls Vs. Godzilla, just to warn you right off if you were in the mood for some quiet autobiographical stories. An excellent punchline to that one, and some oddly plausible action before that (OF COURSE coffee would affect the Gilmore Girls in roughly the same way that spinach does Popeye). Next up is some unwelcome relationship advice in dealing with an abusive partner, which I can’t say any more about because I’m not going to spoil a thing about that ending. Then there’s the story of Brian dressing up as a hobo for Halloween (as a small child), an entirely too plausible Jurassic Park sequel (which they honestly may have done by now), and a fantasy sword slasher, sort of. Probably the most disturbing story in the comic is next, and if I told you that it’s centered around a cheese ball and that’s it’s occasionally terrifying I doubt that you’d believe me. And yet! The other big story in here deals with a man driving to Texas, happy to get away from the snow, only to land in a blizzard. Was I expecting the punchline to this one? Once again, I was not! There are also a few more stories but hey, who doesn’t love surprises? It’s another solid collection of comics that requires reading no previous issues to understand, so if you’ve been seeing Brian’s name for years here but were never sure where to dive in, right here would do just fine! $8
