80-Page Thursdays: The Unexpected #1!

This tag probably won't be back full-time, but we have our first 80-pager for 2015!...and it's from 2011. The Unexpected #1, with stories and art from Dave Gibbons, G. Willow Wilson, Jill Thompson, Farel Dalrymple, Brian Wood, David Lapham, and more.

Like the Ghosts and Strange Adventures ones we checked out before, The Unexpected was an 80-page anthology book for $7.99 cover; which seems like a tough row to hoe in the current comic market. It would sell (per the Beat) 10,416 copies, of which I just bought two! And I thought Unexpected was the strongest so far.

Dave Gibbons opens with "The Great Karlini," a tale of an escape artist, who might not be able to escape his nature...or a father-in-law's promise. Next, G.Willow Wilson's "Dogs" has the titular animals getting sick and tired of bad people, and maybe thinking they could do better. (I'm 90% sure my dog wouldn't have replaced me. Might've hogged the remote, at most.)

Alex Grecian and Jill Thompson bring a different zombie story, "Look Alive," and that one's a lot of fun. Next is Joshua Dysart and Farel Dalrymple's "The Land," featuring monsters both figurative and literal from both north and south of the border; then "A Most Delicate Monster" from Jeffrey Rotter and Lelio Bonaccorso, in which a scientist studying a cloned Neanderthal learns much but not enough.

"Family First" has a brother and sister fighting for survival--and fighting dirty--and "Alone" is a cautionary tale about always clearing your history modern ghost story. Brian Wood's "Americana" follows a woman trying to save her family from America's collapse, and the issue closes with "Blink," a preview tale for the short lived Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child series. This issue trails off a bit at the end, but altogether a stronger-than-usual anthology.