I love a comics anthology with a specific vision, and I enjoyed this second volume of Lucky Pocket Press’s Knapsack Magazine. Their overall aim is to replicate the feeling of reading manga magazines in the late 90’s/early 2000s, and as someone who grew up reading those, I think they’re doing a very nice job. The sense of picking up a thick book and delving into all of the different serials and little side articles comes through. This is clearly a labor of love with a lot of thought put into it. The theme for this volume is “Butter,” so mainly stories about cooking throughout here and some recipes and personal stories about people’s experiences with food. I think my favorite was Theo Stultz’s “The Luthier’s Son: Cherry On Top!” which captures a lot of what I enjoy about his work — I’m a very big fan of his stuff so that was honestly a big part of why I bought this and it was worth it! Most of the time his work is dark but it was fun to see him explore humor with this story about a group of friends having a rough time at a fancy gala dinner.
I also liked Pavina’s story, “Babette and the ‘Special Sandwich,'” which is an amusing look at one girl’s obsession with getting to try the sandwich another girl brings to school for lunch, and Cynthia Yuan Cheng’s “Masitda!” an auto-bio recounting their trip to South Korea and the fun time they had there with their friends, eating delicious food. I really like everything that Cheng does, so that was another reason I got this. I missed the Kickstarter so ended up having to wait to get it, but I’m glad I put in the extra legwork and I’ve signed up for their newsletter now so won’t miss the third volume. I think that the package is a very nice one — there’s a poster, a recipe postcard, the colors are vibrant — the whole book feels nice in the hand and gives the assorted artists a chance to shine. It’s a bit pricey at $35, but for an indie publisher with the additional stuff and the color printing, I got why. If you like independent comics and are nostalgic for the manga magazines of your youth, this might be a good option!
