A comics anthology is always a gamble and I unfortunately found these to be a let down. I don’t want to come off as mean about these anthologies, since they’re done by a charity organization that fosters a nice community of comics creators in British Columbia, but I think the uneven quality is a side effect of their mission. I don’t regret getting these because I will never regret reading comics, even if they’re kind of meh, but I maybe regret the shipping cost from Canada vs the enjoyment I got out of them. This is not to say there aren’t some interesting comics in these volumes, but for me they were outweighed by the lower quality work. I was also disappointed by how thin Through the Labyrinths of the Mind was — that’s honestly my fault for not looking at the page count before purchasing, but it’s only about 110 pages and I’m really used to comics anthologies being over 200 pages.
The standout stories for me were “Through the Narrow Pass” by Jonathon Dalton in Life Finds a Way, and “Fuzzy Black Mass” by Hannah Lou Myers in Through the Labyrinths of the Mind. Dalton is an artist whose work I’ve been following for a few years and I thought “Through a Narrow Pass” reflected his interesting world building and good character work. “Fuzzy Black Mass” is an affecting look at depression that I thought was particularly well done.
If you’re interested in reading these, I would recommend buying these as digital editions and saving yourself the postage, especially if you’re in the US. “Through the Narrow Pass” is also available for free on Dalton’s website, which is worth a look!
