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A favorite saying of mine is "It's not an ego if you really are perfect."
Sadly for the guys who did Clockwork Storybook, this saying does not
apply to them. They're far from perfect. They're far from as good as they
think they are. I wish I could find their brochure and point out all the
great things they say about themselves, but I did some major
housecleaning and have no idea where I put it. I'll just have to settle for
tearing apart the anthology itself. Pity.
One thing stands out in my memory: They made a big deal of how their
updates on their website (www.clockworkstorybook.com) were always
on time. There's always new stuff on the 15th of the month. They're
obviously so much better than other stuff on the web because they're on
time. That's even why they're called Clockwork Storybook. Their
brochure had a breakdown of the title that was just brimming with ego
and brought forth much eye-rolling.
As I read the brochure I thought, "These people seem to have a high
opinion of themselves. Maybe this will actually be something good!"
I'm getting used to disappointment.
It wasn't that the stories were all necessarily bad... They just couldn't live
up to the expectations. A few of the stories were boring. A couple were
entertaining. Mostly I felt neutrality towards them. The characters didn't
grab me, and the plots weren't all that engaging. It's hard to get an
engaging plot in such a short story, and the tales in these anthologies
are no exception.
I received two "issues" of the anthology (I would like to note right now
that these are short story collections with about 1 illustration per story,
not comic books), Mythology and Goblin Market, the first and second
off-line collections. The first one contains stories originally posted on-
line, the second one contains all-new, never published stories.
Before I start with my opinions of the two issues, let me share the basic
concept: This is a "shared-world" anthology. It would be a lot cooler if it
was an original world or an original concept. Nope, it's the classic
"There's magic and monsters and such here in modern-day Earth, we
normal people just don't ever see them." Been there, done that... It
centers around the fictional town of San Cibola, CA. If anyone knows if
there's such a saint as Cibola, please let me know. There are four stories
to a book, 1 each by: Bill Willingham, Matt Sturges, Chris Roberson, and
Mark Finn. Art is provided by Bill Willingham, Harold Covey, Doug
Potter, and Mack White.
Let's start with #1. As the title would suggest, all these stories deal with
mythology. According to the introduction, it's supposedly looking at
mythology from a "different angle". The angle they look at it from seems
no different to me, and most of the stories are pretty damn boring. Not
one of them really interested me, and none of the art was that great.
As most of you know, one of my biggest pet peeves is first issues that
expect you to know all about the characters and such. Mythology is just
like this. It is obviously geared towards fans from the web site, as there
are at least two stories based on characters that we're supposed to know
who they are and what they do. Not knowing about these characters
makes the stories even more boring than they are.
Issue #2, Goblin Market, was closer to being up my alley. I am always
drawn to the concept of fae folk markets here on earth (which is why I
loved Gaiman's two novels, Neverwhere and Stardust. In fact, they're
much more entertaining than these stories!). So even when some of the
stories in this issue were boring, I at least enjoyed the setting. The Gift is
a relatively funny story, even though it again involves the two
characters I'm supposed to know about and don't. Vengeance and
Nothing Personal were both pretty bad. However, the Ballad of Billy
Smalls somehow drew me into it... Chris Roberson's tale of a bicycle
courier that swore he would deliver anything, anywhere, was the most
entertaining story between the two issues, and I don't know why.
However, none of the stories are worth the price... The 30 page
collections run $6, almost the price of a paperback novel! The stories
may be worth reading on-line. I haven't checked out their page, but it is
free. I believe their published collections will only appeal to fans that for
some reason feel the need to have the stories in hard copy instead of just
on the 'net.
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