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A review by manxomemia
Flinch by Christian Read, James Barclay, Anton McKay, Justin Randall, Tom Taylor, Colin Wilson, Ray Fawkes, Chris Bones, Skye Ogden, Shaun Tan, Michael Katchan, Bobby.N, Terry Dowling, Chris Bolton, Mel Tregonning
3.0
Though the idea of having a collection of short black and white gothic comics sounded great in principle, many of the stories in Flinch didn't quite work out. This is a tiny book with lots of contributions, and I don't think all the writers really embraced the short format. Some stories simply felt like a couple of pages had been taken from an existing comic and put in, making the story seem disjointed and unfinished. Like with many anthologies, I found the first in this collection to be by far, the strongest.
That said, the premise was cool, many of the stories were great, and the book also functions well as a sampler for lesser known writers and artists you might want to check out.
On a final note, given that this collection had many less mainstream artists and writers, it was disappointing that it still managed to have only about 5% female contributors (unsurprisingly, there were also very few female characters). When I look at even my mainstream comic collection there is greater female representation than that.
That said, the premise was cool, many of the stories were great, and the book also functions well as a sampler for lesser known writers and artists you might want to check out.
On a final note, given that this collection had many less mainstream artists and writers, it was disappointing that it still managed to have only about 5% female contributors (unsurprisingly, there were also very few female characters). When I look at even my mainstream comic collection there is greater female representation than that.