(Listen folks, I'm going lazy on this one. I will grant you that I don't do many anthology posts, but that's because they take too long to write. I usually do a brief review of each story. Here's the problem: It's Sunday night. My Lions are playing in less than two hours and have a decent chance to win their first playoff game in three decades. Last time they won one, I was a high school kid, working at the local grocery store and I missed the game because I was at work. The one review per story dog isn't going to hunt and I need to get this done tonight. So buckle up and put your hardhat on, sweetheart because we're on a trip trying to do this thing justice in less than the two and half hours I average for reviewing an anthology. No, that's not a typo.)
When Cedar Sanderson wandered by my email one day inquiring as to whether I would do a review for her latest work I was intrigued. Cedar is, after all, one hell of a writer and artist and I've reviewed a ton of her stuff already. That's because I enjoy it. She's really good at what she does. So of course I perked up my ears when she mentioned the word "experimental." Cedar works in a lab. I was excited. I thought maybe she used her powers of science and finally conjured up the evil spirits from the Nethervoid of the Shadowwalker and we were going to utilize the power of The Dark to level cities and invent popcorn that won't burn in the microwave or something...
Right.
Like popcorn that won't burn in the microwave will ever actually exist.
But then she told me that she had a project with a guy named Sam Robb, whose work I am new to reading, and that it was really cool. I had known that Cedar had participated in Inktober (it's a challenge graphic artists take to do a drawing every day in October) and I was watching her post stuff on Facebook. What I hadn't known was that Sam Robb was doing a story every day based on whatever she drew and also the prompts (provided by fans. The process is explained in the book.) that she used to draw them. That sounded just crazy enough to work.
Which, admittedly was not assured. I mean, Klinger thought that wearing dresses was crazy enough to get him discharged, right?
Fortunately though, it did work. It really works well. It worked so well that I manged to read all of One October Night: 31 Illustrations and Their Stories in one freaking day. I don't read entire anthologies in a day ever. They don't flow like novels and it's usually pretty hard to focus on the book when it keeps changing up on me like that. Here's the thing: These stories were so good it didn't matter.
There is a whole ton of stuff here. At least one story was heavily influenced by HP Lovecraft and written in the same vein as "Call of Cthulu." It was great. There was another about a girl who got an epic birthday present even if it wasn't quite what she expected. It had me chuckling though, even if her father wasn't, at least at first. I've got to admit too, I've never quite seen death portrayed as a wolf before. Although, there was a bit of Pandora (from Greek myth, not the music app) mixed in there as well.
There is also a story known as "Coffee Failure". I don't want to spoil the story, but any picture with the word "decaf" written on the side of a coffee mug clearly deserves the name. I mean, seriously, who drinks decrappinated anything? Ok, so I bought a box of decrappinated tea bags once but that's because they looked like the good stuff.
Of course, small planets need saving too, and that's the theme of one of the other stories. That's a crazy one because it sounds like the main character is almost bored by what he discovers before he works it out and finds out what's important. Seriously, it's clearly not meant as a Christmas movie but it has a sort of Miracle on 34th Street feel to it in a way. Kinda. Then there's the coffee shop story. That's touching. It's also cool because it involves a girl who reads books. Who doesn't love girls who read books?
Anyway...
Cedar's work is excellent as always. She has a definite style about her that really needs a proper art critic to describe it. I hate to disappoint you all, but this is Jimbo's and we don't have a proper art critic. I guess her defining things are a kind of sweeping strokes with lines that don't always finish. If you don't believe me about the lines try coloring one of her line drawings in Recolor. One click and half the picture is brown. I was kinda mad about that one because those baby dragons on that bookcase needed some color and..
I'm off topic again. That wasn't even one of the pics from One October Night.
I'm not doing her work just because I can't. Just know that if you're in to science fiction and, especially, fantasy artwork Cedar is worth checking out. I know she does covers and that's terrific but I almost like her daily stuff more. There's something about the simpleness of the work that just appeals.
I did take an art history class once. You'd think I'd be better at this. It's not my fault. Words like "Byzantine" and "Baroque" just don't work here.
Whatever. Listen. There's a lot more to this book than what I'm showing here.
I never, ever in my life even think about discussing forewords in my reviews.
However...
Both Robb and Sanderson did forewords for One October Night and they talked a bit about the process of how they conceived the stories and images in the book. I almost skipped them (GASP!) but I'm glad I didn't. Reading those forewords changed the way I read the book. I didn't have access to the prompts, obviously, but I did stop at each pic (they precede the story they inspired) and try to figure out what the story was going to be about. I was wrong every time, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that I got enjoyment out of trying to guess what was coming. It was like one of those assignments I had in school where I had to write about what happened next in the book we were reading except that it didn't suck and I didn't have to hide that I knew what was coming because I had gotten bored and read ahead. It was great.
So seriously, give this one a try. I'd like to see someone else try something like this in the future because I feel like this is the type of thing that could become a thoroughly enjoyable trend if we could get enough people signed on to do it. It's that much fun.
Bottom Line: 5.0 out of 5 Sacks of Roc Food
One October Night: 31 Illustrations and Their Stories
Sam Robb/ Cedar Sanderson
Sanderley Studios, 2023
One October Night: 31 Illustrations and Their Stores is available for purchase at the following link. If you click the link and buy literally anything from Amazon, I get a small percentage at no additional cost to you.
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