Writer: Alan Moore
Artists: Jim Baikie, Hilary Barta, Melinda Gebbie, Kevin Nowlan, Rick Veitch
Colourists: Wildstorm FX, Dave Baron, BAD@$$, Kevin Nowlan
Letterers: Todd Klein, Kevin Nowlan
Collecting TOMORROW STORIES #1-6
Price: $24.95
Publisher: DC Wildstorm/America's Best Comics
ISBN: 1-56389-660-5

Selling anthologies has always been a difficult business. Audiences generally don't like to take risks, and picking up a book each month with completely new characters and creators is certainly risky. Even with recurring characters, the space allotted to each every month can easily leave you feeling short-changed. It's the unnatural positioning of different genres that is at the core of this feeling. If I like crime, why would I want to pay the $2.99 asking price for the quarter of an issue that's relevant to me?

Usually, anthologies have succeeded due to a highly talented editorial board working to maintain the high creative standards that keep people coming back for more (HEAVY METAL), or due to a figurehead character who sells the rest of the anthology (Judge Dredd in 2000AD). TOMORROW STORIES has created a third category by dint of its principal creator's singular position in the industry. An anthology that is solely penned by one man and therefore retains his unique writing characteristics.

TOMORROW STORIES has always been seen as the black sheep of Alan Moore's personal publishing house, America's Best Comics. Without the fanboy Easter eggs of TOP TEN, the sex, magic and glorious visuals of PROMETHEA or the straight (some might say too straight) adventure action of TOM STRONG, TOMORROW STORIES found itself without a unique selling point. While it's as drenched with that inimitable Moore writing style as it's brethren, its reluctance to pander so directly to the superhero audience has seen it largely ignored.

Which is a shame, because it contains some of the most ingenious pieces of sequential art in years, alongside some of the most charming parodies and farces this side of editorial cartooning. While it's not all 'hit', and often feels lacking in narrative meat - as any collection of short stories would - it is far from a pointless exercise.

Packaged by Wildstorm in its regular hardcover, this collection of the first six issues is an expensive book. The production values inside are no different than what you'd expect from a softcover. (One is expected to follow in due course.) There are a couple of character sketches at the back, but you're essentially paying for the thick boards that bookend the work. I would have expected more for the price. Likewise, the issues themselves are just presented as initially printed. It might have been more interesting to package each of the character's stories together.

The most disappointing work in the collection is Melinda Gebbie's "Cobweb". It's hard to see what the point of the work is at first. It starts as thinly veiled satire, then shifts to soft-core pornography before losing it's way entirely. The pencil-work is gorgeous, especially in the illustrated prose chapter. The colouring works wonderfully with it, giving it a texture and softness that enhances the pure black-and-white more than any colouring in the collection. It's just a shame that Moore hasn't focused a little more on what he wanted to achieve with this character.

A latecomer to the package, with only one instalment here, is Hilary Barta's 'Splash Brannigan'. A comical "homage" to Jack Cole's Plastic Man. It's yet another comic about comics, albeit a genuinely funny one. Splash is a classic hero in the pathetic-loser-convinced-of-his-superiority mould. Whilst we only get enough time for his origin story, Splash is an interesting pure comedy character. Barta's thick inks work with the theme of the title, with the colouring offering a limited number of hues, but textured to highlight the inks.

The only pure satire of the piece is the headlong rush of Jim Baikie's 'First American'. The character is a superhero, but only as long as it lets him get into the strange situations Moore wants to parody. Joined by his ever faithful, barely legal sidekick, USAngel, First American touches on everything from THE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW to RESERVOIR DOGS. While 'Splash Brannigan' touches on the behind-the-panels aspect of comics production, 'First American' often tears directly into the heroes themselves. It's funny, fast-paced material that feels a lot like Moore's early small-press work. Baikie's scratchy, classical artwork is evocative of the work it often satirises, while still being able to handle the timing of the humour.

Often considered the best of the bunch is Kevin Nowlan's 'Jack B. Quick'. The adventures of the pint-sized genius and his increasingly nervous parents is equal parts fictional science and whimsical home-town Americana. Jack, modelled after Nowlan's own son, is the cutest protagonist this side of Archie Comics, despite the havoc he causes. If he's not experimenting on the cat, he's creating miniature solar systems or making light adhere to speed limits. Nowlan's gloriously detailed inking seems to simultaneously evoke photo-realism and comic caricature, a paradox even Jack couldn't unravel. This is pure fun, distilled very densely into a few short pages. It's a shame Nowlan can't produce more work, because I'm sure a lot of people would buy 'Jack B. Quick' all on it's own.

But perhaps the real standout piece of work is Rick Veitch's 'Greyshirt'. The lead is a dapper mystery-man in the style of classics such as The Shadow. His pulpy tales revolve around the seedy Indigo City. But it's not the died-in-the-wool thirties ambience or gangster milieu that sets this character apart... It's Moore's tampering with the sequential arts that verges on the mystical. The Eisner-nominated short, 'How Things Work Out', is a feat of planning and organisation that almost boggles the mind. Veitch plays along with Moore's dalliances admirably, demonstrating his mastery of the ugly as beautiful. 'Greyshirt' is at it's best when showing what comics can achieve.

While it's Moore's name that has made this collection available to the public in the first place - and most probably sold a great many copies too - it's the artists who have had to hold this together. Would 'Jack B. Quick' be quite as charming without Nowlan? Does Gebbie save 'Cobweb' from being a complete write-off? And what about the admirable and adaptable quality of Todd Klein's lettering? Never an issue missed, never a story-telling quirk lost. Everything from the colours to the pencils to the letters is a genuine treat.

It's not Alan Moore's most revolutionary work (excepting the Eisner-nominated 'Greyshirt' story), but it's still a work that anybody can pick up and enjoy. Whether the combined body of work on display here is worth the asking price must, of course, be a concern. A little more 'Jack B. Quick' and 'Greyshirt' and a little less 'Cobweb' and 'First American' and this could have been an outstanding work. In the end, you're forced to ask the big questions that all anthologies pose. Will you pay for work you don't want in order to get at the work you do?

John Fellows works in the television industry providing assistive services to the deaf community.

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