Image Comics' compilation PopGun is the latest—and quite possibly the largest—in the growing realm of full-color comics anthologies, populated by such better-known publications as Flight, Meathaus, MOME and Five, as well as singer Tori Amos's Comic Book Tattoo, recently published by Image Comics.
The surge in popularity for such properties is driven by a new generation of young cartoonists looking beyond the standard aspirations of illustrating superhero comics, said PopGun's editors, Mark Andrew Smith and Joe Keatinge. "Both of us saw this incoming generation of creators doing work the likes of which the medium has never seen, and [we] heard from a growing number of established creators who really wanted a forum in which to try out and experiment," Smith said. "Those folks, combined with a rising interest in comics by mainstream [readers looking for] an accessible way to explore what comics are capable of, made us pursue putting together PopGun.”
"I think it's indicative of the incoming generation of cartoonists, writers and artists who are hungry to create their own material,” Keatinge said. “They were raised with the notion of that as the end game. The creators behind PopGun, Meathaus, Five, MOME and Top Shelf 2.0 are producing some of the most inspiring material to come to comics in a very long time."
Published in fall 2007, PopGun, volume 1, sold out, and Image went back to press. Volume 2 was released this summer. Conceived as a kind of comics “mixtape,” Smith and Keatinge pitched the anthology to current Image publisher Eric Stephenson, who quickly gave them a green light. The two began inviting contributors and culled material, including new and old work—such as a 1990 Frank Einstein story by Mike Allred and a Cheeseburger-Head story by Erik Larsen.
The first volume ended up overflowing to well over 400 pages, and volume 2 stretched to nearly 500 pages. The comics are eclectic, reflecting Image's standard oeuvre of quirky mainstream fare. Smith has contributed several stories himself.
One of the first volume's more daring inclusions is "TAG," a violent-yet-fun story in watercolor paints from San Francisco artist Dave Crosland. He had worked with Keatinge and Smith before, and he saw Popgun as a chance to draw new readers to his work.
"If an anthology can put my work in front of someone who, otherwise, would not have seen it, then that's useful exposure," Crosland said. "There's seldom any money involved for the individual creators on those books. It’s best to consider your story a several-page advertisement for yourself."
With so many different artists bringing such distinct voices to an anthology, the challenge for editors is to shape the overall project, according to Fantagraphics publicity director Eric Reynolds, who assisted with editing MOME. For PopGun, Keatinge once again referred to mixtapes. "Comics and music are basically the same thing—short bursts of storytelling and emotion with the sole difference [that] one is audible and one is visual. What PopGun does is take that manic energy of your favorite mixtape, the one that opened your eyes to all sorts of new music and rare tracks by your favorite artists, and distills it into almost 500 pages."
Cartoonist Jim Rugg is fast becoming an anthology veteran, and his character Afrodisiac, a tongue-in-cheek paean to blaxploitation films of the 1970s, has appeared in both Meathaus and PopGun. But Rugg said the recognition boost from appearing in anthologies is negligible and that the best benefit lies in having an unrestrained creative outlet for projects that don't fit into the standard publishing format.
"It allows us to develop the character as time permits, and I think it has the effect of blurring the details of the character in the reader’s memory,” Rugg said. “I want to create that sensation with Afrodisiac, and the way I’m trying to do that is by having him appear in different venues and formats, so that readers will catch glimpses of the character,” he went on. “Different stories may offer slightly different interpretations of the character. Hopefully, the effect left in the readers’ mind is more alive than just the static image of the character from one or two stories.”
As more cartoonists take on the daunting task of illustrating a 150 to 200-page stand-alone graphic novel, a short story that can be created in a relatively short time can be a creative boon. "I also struggle with the length of time necessary to produce a graphic novel,” Rugg said, such as his work on the Plain Janes series from DC’s Minx line. “A detrimental effect of the graphic novel format is that it inhibits young cartoonists. Anthologies allow me to do a short story, where I can try different techniques and not worry about whether it’s something sustainable over a long period.”
