Flashed

Flashed: Sudden Stories in Comics and Prose edited by Josh Neufeld and Sari Wilson, 171 pages

Flash fiction is generally defined as really really short stories, often with a 500-word or 1000-word limit. In this anthology, Neufeld and Wilson expand flash fiction to include short comics (no more than four pages), and through combinations of prose and comics, create a series of story triptychs created by different authors and artists. For example, they'll take a short comic by an artist and send it to a writer to interpret/evolve/expand the story in prose. Once that second step is done, the editors will then send the second piece to a different artist, who will interpret/evolve/expand that step without seeing the original piece.

What results are some fascinating sets of linked tales. It's always interesting to see where the story goes as different creators take it on; I particularly liked "Amerika" (an exploration of the American Dream and government), "Brothers" (which is, shockingly, about brotherhood), "Mutable Architecture" (about some really odd living spaces), and "Venus & Mars" (which starts out almost wistful and takes some surprising, and definitely NSFW twists). Really, the whole anthology is fantastic, and while I was a bit skeptical about the concept at first, the results are awesome. I highly recommend it.