Having successfully proven year on year on year that no-one can sell an anthology comic (coming soon to a bargain bin near you: 6 month’s worth of unsold Marvel Comics Presents issues!) the industry has somehow realised that an anthology TPB will actually sell pretty damn well. Following the success of chunky, packed-to-the-eyeballs anthologies like the Flight series and Adhouse’s Project trilogy, Image has released the optimistically titled Popgun: Volume 1.

Popgun repeatedly refers to itself as a “graphic mixtape” and if you understand how they came to that, you’re doing better than I. A few of the pieces are reprints of old and rare comics, the first appearance of Mike Allred’s Frank Einstein being one very notable example, but the vast majority of it is new work from creators of all levels. The mixtape metaphor, it has to be said, doesn’t stretch very far at all and, for me, smacks of some faintly embarrassing marketing scheme.

Still, that’s not the fault of the creators who have contributed, and there are many. I picked it up because I’m a sucker for Jim Mahfood, and if there’s anything else I like in it, well, it’ll only be a better deal. It seems a bit stupid to point out something this obvious, but because it’s an anthology title the quality and appeal does vary wildly from story to story. Still, at over 400 pages, if you can’t find some gems then perhaps you’re not really as into comics as you thought. Part of Popgun’s remit, if you believe the hype, was to contain stories that’ll appeal to people who don’t read comics. Quite how rigourously they’ve pursued that goal is unclear; there are several stories you wouldn’t even be able to follow without some serious experience in the field of comics, as experimental as they are. In real terms, “wider appeal” appears to mean “no superheroes.”

It’s hard to pin down Popgun. It’s got some great work in it, that’s for sure, and I love the anthology format. I’m just finding it hard to give it a specific identity for it once you get past the ridiculous mixtape metaphor. If it truly were supposed to be a “mixtape”, I’d have liked to have a seen a lot more rarities and classic shorts to anchor it, rather than an unrelenting barrage of all-new material. Popgun is good, yes, but in a world where you’ve got Project Superior, Telstar & Romance, 4 volumes of Flight and even Image’s own (vastly superior) Four Letter Worlds, it’s very hard to recommend it unless you’ve read those and are hungry for more of the same.

Tags: Anthology, Jim Mahfood
Publisher: Image