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Kris's Reviews > Digestate: A Food & Eating Themed Anthology

Digestate by J.T. Yost
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it was ok

The second "themed" anthology I've read recently (the other being Side A: The Music Lover's Graphic Novel). Once more, I find myself confronted with a wild mix of quality. A few are quite good (and I'll list them below). Others are not as good, but still acceptable. And others... well, they range from terrible to incomprehensible. I'm always willing to accept that I may not like every story, or even most stories, in an anthology. But, in this particular case, there was so much to dislike aside from my personal preferences.

Problems this anthology had:

1) There were typos. This seems to be common to indie comics, as I assume no one wants to touch the art (lettering) of their peers, but it looks sloppy and unprofessional and it's just distracting. There were also problems with some pages being chopped off at the margins, but I will assume this will be fixed in later printings (if there are any).
2) Some of the comics weren't about food. This is a big problem when it's supposed to be a food/eating anthology.
3) Some of the comics that were about food didn't tell much of a story or anecdote.
4) Some comics weren't about food, but instead told a standard story where all the characters happened to be food.
5) Of the comics that were about food and did tell a story, they leaned overwhelmingly vegetarian. I have nothing against vegetarianism, but I was hoping for a more balanced approach, maybe where people would talk about a special dinner, or cooking with their family, or traveling to another place and trying new foods. More like French Milk, less... "meat is bad and factory farming is bad and you should feel bad."
6) Those Josh Bayer comics. I find his art messy, unappealing, hard to follow, and while someone may have eaten in them, they did not seem to be about eating/food. Maybe the Comics Journal gave his latest book a good review, but I think they try to hate everything I love, so of course I would hate something they loved. I ended up skimming through, and later skipping all of Mr. Bayer's segments.

Lest you think I completely hated the book, here are the segments I recommend:

"Gwenaëlle the Baby Sitter: The Shitty World Explained to Children" by CHA
"Soul Food" by Hazel Newlvant
"Successful Slaughter!" by Marek Bennett (the BEST story in the book!)
"That Peanut Butter Kid" by Alex Robinson
"Dead Meat" by Jeremy Tinder
"In Defense of Meat" by James Kochalka
"Slaughterhouse Stories" by JT Yost (the second best story)
"A History of Eating" by Liz Prince
"City Chickens" by Jess Ruliffson
"The Tell-tale Burger" by Pranas T. Naujokaitis
"Tell Now, The Tale of the Argus Mushroom!" by Neil Brideau (this one is weird, in a good way)
"Boycotts" by Nicole J. Georges
"Picky Picky" by Tod C. Parkhill
"So... Brisk" by Jonathan Baylis and Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg

So, while there are parts I enjoyed, I can't recommend the book overall. There's too much crap to sift through in this tome and much better anthologies out there to read with a higher overall level of quality.
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Reading Progress

September 18, 2013 – Started Reading
September 18, 2013 – Shelved
September 18, 2013 –
page 133
46.18% "Gawd, indie comics anthologies are so douchy. A handful of good comics buried under a pile of Robert Crumb wannabes."
September 18, 2013 – Finished Reading

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