Winter, JB – Izzy Challenge #5

Website

Izzy Challenge #5

This has turned into a weekend of anthology comics here at ye olde Optical Sloth, and these are a couple of good ones to contrast.  The other comic reviewed was the first issue of the Trubble Club anthology, in case anybody reads this years down the line and wants to compare.  In this issue, JB recruited people to do a panel each, based on a state, and have the story be about Izzy traveling through all 50 states.  It had to be all ages stuff, JB sent an image of Izzy along and the artist had to fill in the backgrounds.  With Trubble Club, well, I’m not entirely sure how they did their stories, but they certainly weren’t all ages (a plus in my book), and they had a whole page to set up a story, not just one panel.  It’s probably silly to compare the two books, as they’re aiming to do completely different things, and… you know, that’s a good argument, so I will.  This comic is less about a story than it is about the challenge to have 50 artists represent something from each state, whether or not that something has anything to do with reality.  Looking at JB’s website I can see that he/she has experimented with the individual panel idea before in different ways, and I’m all for people pushing the boundaries of this “graphic art” idea as far as it can go, so kudos to him/her.  There’s also a deal up at the moment (through the end of December) where you can get #1-5 of this series for $3.50, which is a good a chance as any to see what other experiments have been going on with the Izzy Challenges.  So, to sum up, the Izzy Challenge books are a fascinating look into single panels from all over the country (because that’s what they were trying to do) and Trubble Club is a fascinating look into utterly random jam comics that somehow stick to a basic theme (because that’s what THEY were trying to do).  Can you believe I’m not rich from such utterly random commentary yet?  Yeah, me too.  Oh, and as for the list of contributors to this book, check out that website listed above, as I’m not typing 50 names in here.  Some of the people I know are listed on this page are Jack Turnbull, Isaac Cates, Barry Rodges, Sarah Morean, Joshua Cotter and Matt Feazell, but that’s a very incomplete list.  $1