Story & Art: Mirka Andolfo, Brian Azzarello, Marc Bernardin, Elsa Charretier, Becky Cloonan, Tula Lotay, Jamie McKelvie, Stephanie Phillips, Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Ram V, Becky Cloonan, Francesco Francavilla, Lee Garbett, Joelle Jones, Ariela Kristantina, Tula Lotay, Jamie McKelvie, Eduardo Risso, Christian Ward and Jock

96 pages, 9.99

DSTLRY Media

What It Is: The first release from DSTLRY, THE DEVIL’S CUT is a one-shot anthology with all the DSTLRY creators, in various combinations, getting five or eight pages to show us what they got. All in all, there’s eleven short stories in these pages.

The Good: The concept is a good one. It’s like a sampler for titles that don’t exist yet. Or maybe never will? Anyway, it’s a showcase for the publisher to let the readership know that they have some of the hottest current creators in their stable of talent.

And it’s a gorgeous showcase of this talent. On glossy oversized magazine paper with a spine and spot varnish on the cover for ten bucks for nearly a hundred pages—this is an art book and succeeds when it leans into that. Francesco Francavilla, Joelle Jones, and Tula Lotay (just to name a few) art under the same cover is always worth your time.

A few of the pieces even work on a story level. “Waiting To Die” by Ram V and Lee Garrett is the most successful at presenting a complete short story. “Deleted Scene #2” by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso gets a special mention for simply being the only one that doesn’t feature any sci-fi or fantasy elements.

The Bad: It’s an anthology, so you get hits and misses. The whiffs mostly come from the story side of things. While trying not to react too cynically to this, a lot of these feel like elevator pitches for Netflix shows that will be cancelled before you get around to watching them. As diverse and engaging as the art is, the stories have that same-y Twilight Zone premise thing to them. I get it. Eight or five pages is not much time. There’s also ten solid purple divider pages between stories, even though most of them feature a “The End” on the last page…

The Score: 7 out of 10 capes, but I would hazard that no two people will read this book the same.

Further Reading: DSTLRY has announced eight upcoming series, the first one is GONE by Jock, so let’s see what they can do when they’ve got the page count.