3. Flight 3

The original Flight is a pretty interesting story of innovation - and by that I mean how the actual graphic novel came about. A bunch of web comic artists who met online got together and decided to pool their collective talents to produce their own graphic novel. They used the popularity of their own sites as well as other linking sites to produce the book. Each artist contributed a short story which may or may not have had something to do with the word "flight". At least, it seems to me, that was part of the idea behind the original, but it doesn't seem to say anything about that on the website. Nor does it seem to have become a general theme of the series.

I really enjoyed reading Flight because of the idea of it- and some of the stories were actually pretty good. Flight 2 felt like a bit repetitive and less innovative. By the time we get to Flight 3 we know the deal, its not innovative anymore, and all we're looking for is good art and good stories. Hard to find in this one.

It seems to me that short stories are harder to write than full length ones. There is little time for character or plot development, and without just enough of both they tend to fall flat. The other problem i find is that new short fiction writers are too easily drawn to the Twilight Zone ending. Instead of creating a story that's memorable, they spend the entire plot working up to a memorable ending- which ends up not being that memorable at all. I guess I'm also sort of twist-ending-ed out.

Not all of the stories in Flight 3 relied on that device, but unfortunately, there were very few stories in here that were actually memorable. In fact, I haven't gotten up from my seat to get the book yet, and I'm having a hard time remembering which stories were worth reading.

Some of the stories had beautifully done artwork and some of the stories had intriguing ideas. unfortunately, only one or two of them had both. I was about to go into more specifics about the individual stories, but I think it would just be a better use of our time to sum the whole book up in one word: "meh".