Flinch

by Shaun Tan (Editor), Skye Ogden (Editor), Ray Fawkes

Flinch is a collection of engaging stories by established and emerging creators, all playing on their interpretation of flinch.

From facing the other within ourselves, to the tale of a prison inmate discovering what keeps him going to a handful of stories exploring traditional (and non-traditional) hauntings alike. With cover art by World Fantasy Award winning Shaun Tan, Flinch features stories from creative collaborations including: UK fantasy author James Barclay & Chris Bolton, Ray Fawkes & Anton McKay, Justin Randall & Chris Bones, International Horror Guild Award winner Terry Dowling & Skye Ogden and many more!

Sample pages and commentary available at flinchbook.com

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Horror, Fantasy, Picture Books, Short Stories, Science Fiction

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Shaun Tan (born 1974) is the illustrator and author of award-winning children's books. After freelancing for some years from a studio at Mt. Lawley, Tan relocated to Melbourne, Victoria, in 2007. Tan was the Illustrator in Residence at the University of Melbourne's Department of Language Literacy and Arts Education for two weeks through an annual Fellowship offered by the May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust. 2009 World Fantasy Award for Best Artist. In 2011, he won his first Oscar in the category Best Short Animated Film for his work The Lost Thing.

Reviews

[Sooraya Evans · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mixed bag containing mostly crappy and confusing stories.
Some of the artwork was downright lazy.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flinch peels back the skin on the parts of our psyche that most push down. It is the acceptance of the worst that can be; embracing that which lays in the deep. Flinch reminds me of Jean Paul Sartre; the darker side of Zen; and the apocalyptic thought trails of Grant Morrison.

Be ready to face something you might not be prepared for.
Don't flinch.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty odd and crazy. Just the type of comic style I like. >.<

[Shannon Fay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well that was a fun little collection of dark musings and nightmarish fantasies. I actually liked most of them, though one or two were a tad confusing. Overall though, there were a few I REALLY enjoyed, one I thought was just plain perfect. There were even a couple that had stories or plot concepts that were solid enough that I thought, should the writer/artist want to, they could expound upon them and create a bigger story. Now I liked each of these as little vignettes, but I also think that if a story concept could handle becoming more than a vignette, it's a testament to the strength of the concept that it could handle becoming a larger story, and carry more pages. And all the vignettes in here that I really liked have concepts that could easily handle becoming bigger stories. Of those, there's even some that I would love to see again, as complete stories of their own, because they could definitely stand on their own, and the idea is strong enough that you could easily write enough to create a whole graphic novel around that concept.

Overall though, yes I'd recommend this little collection of graphic novel shorts. Particularly to anyone who loves dark little short stories. This is why I so loved Love, Death, and Robots. (Quick tiny little worlds, contained within themselves. Short stories that are easy to digest and fast, but that lack no less power or darkness or intrigue for their brevity.) Seriously though, if you liked this little collection that is Flinch, go watch Love, Death and Robots on Netflix. I have a feeling you'll like most of those stories too. If you prefer more traditional graphic novels though, and have trouble jumping right into a plot if there's not strong setup, then skip this, because a lot of the stories force you right in, and make you figure out what's going on as you're reading. That's how short-stories are after all, and that's how pretty much all anthologies work, but this is a small anthology, filled with a surprising number of stories for how few ages there are, so most of these stories are VERY short. I'm talking quite a few that are a mere handful of pages. So if you like things to be a bit more clearly laid out, and a bit more involved, this probably won't be your gig, because these little guys give new meaning to the term "short story."

The breakdown of each story:

Withheld: It's about the guy in prison, but I'm not sure I understood that one, so not off to a great start. But I'm glad I kept reading because I liked the rest much better. I guess I'm just the black sheep here, as every other review I've read seems to like this first story best, and not care for the others, but this is the one I liked the least, and the one that I didn't understand, so maybe it's just me.

Night: This one was amazing. Short and sweet about a boy and monsters, but I particularly loved the art style on this one.

The Ride Home: Well, that got suddenly VERY dark, but very real, and I kind of saw it coming. I mean a lady calls in to talk to a guy who doesn't remember her about the past. Well, "boys will be boys," as it goes. I'm glad this was included though because for all the nightmarish and dark stuff in this book that's purely fantasy, there are plenty of real nightmares that people have to live every day, and this is one of them.

Way Out: Was cool, and the art was very grungy and fitting of the story. But come on guy, there have got to be easier ways to die. Although in a kind of funny way I suppose that's one way to deal with muggings. And it would probably freak most muggers out. I've actually had similar thoughts about robberies in some of my darker periods, though I'm not sure what that says about me.

The Daemon-Street Ghost Trap: This is possibly my favourite. Or no, tied to be favourite? In any event, it's the world-building with this one that gets me. IT's like a fucked up version of the game. Anyone remember the game, where if you think about the game, you lose the game (and now you all just lost the game, by the way. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're lucky and I'll leave you that way). The idea of the whole thing, how the traps work out and what the red room is, it's pretty interesting, and I would love a full story in this world, with people who can resist, or are cursed to hunt ghosts, fighting to find them all and vanquish them. Like Supernatural meets Constantine, only Constantine's cancer is because he's a ghost-hunter, and still runs around all Supernatural style exorcising malicious ghosts. And of course there's a Drusilla type side-kick who is just a little mad, seems crazy at least to everyone else, because of her affinity for feeling them. Clearly if I liked this story enough to think about a world in which this idea was a reality, it struck a chord.

I'm not sure I really understand any of these moral lessons by Shaun Tan, but the illustrations are beautiful at least.

96,000m: Freakshow, just watch some damn hentai. What is with people and squid? I just don't get the whole tentacle thing. If that's your thing, sure, but why you gotta bring someone with you? Is it weird though that I have an insane urge to colour in the last page with the squid? I think it's because there's no shading, it's just very stark black and white (on really white pages, so the contrast is insanely high, and I don't know that I care for that.). Plus that final image is well-drawn and very pretty, so yeah, I think colouring it would be fun.

No Craft: Yep, we get it, you like Lovecraft. I've never read any of his stuff, so I can't really comment. I can say though, that I think we DO deserve monsters, but I really HOPE that they aren't monsters, so much as things we can't understand or fathom, that happen to be on the kind side, rather that malevolent.

Speak of the Devil: This one was good, and I liked it. The art style works too, particularly that one shot of the guy smoking with those long creepy nails in silhouette. Really sets and atmosphere. This is another short that could easily be longer. We could get more of the guy's life story, see waht all the tow-trucker did and how his life ended up in this place. Or follow the other guy on his... adventures. That mythology would be fun.

The Snare: Well that sucks. 2 years of training down the drain. I'd be so pissed off if I were that guy, not that it matters, clearly. That's dark, but hey, it's only one town at a time, at least it's not the whole world. For this comic, I really liked the background filler art, in between the panels. Normally there'd be white space there, just plain blank white, but the decision to fill it with macabre patterns really helps the story feel more ugly and harsh. Especially the first pattern when we're setting up the story, with the repeated skeletal thing.

White Dove III: This one is my other favourite story. It's also quick, but packs a powerful punch for such a short little vignette. It's a classic sci-fi tale, people trying to find a new Earth and being out in space alone. We appreciate your sacrifice, and honestly, I'd do the same. It's heartwarming at least to see that they care for each other though. You could delve deeper into this idea, but honestly, this short little bit was perfect as is. And this is where that stark contrast thing works, with no shading. I think i like it here because the art is detailed enough that we still feel the relief and can discern where light and shadow should be, even without other tones, but in the previous one, it was simple too sparse and stark for that to work.

Twain: I liked this too, and definitely enjoyed the creepy art style, particularly for the evil creatures. To the creatures, I simply say that's what you get for fucking someone over. This would also be one that could potentially be expounded upon. It might be interesting to see this guy Jed in other circumstances, then see him pushed to his limits, and how he lives between the two. The only question I have in this story is: what exactly does Twain mean? (I'm assuming it's like a twin, like a person who is with you always, and the evil shit wants a twain, and once the twain dies it unleashes Jed? I dunno, that's the best I can due with my context clues.)

[Parka · Rating 2 out of 5]

(More pictures at parkablogs.com)

Flinch is a graphic novel anthology of dark stories, and the book is printed in black and white. I actually bought this thinking it's an art book — big mistake.

The only story I liked was the first one about the prison inmate who was framed for murder. The storytelling is simple and while the ending isn't totally unexpected, it manages to close the whole story full circle. All the stories touch on something dark. There are stories on ghost catching, hunting for the giant squid, floating in space looking for new planets to inhabit, to name a few. Unfortunately, I have to say that the stories are disengaging rather than engaging.

And page 111 even has a low pixelated quality print (shown in picture below).

The artists and writers involved are James Barclay, Chris Bones, Terry Dowling, Michael Katchan, Bobby.N, Justin Randall, Andrew Richardson, Shaun Tan, Mel Tregonning, Colin Wilson, Chris Bolton, Tom Bonin, Ray Fawkes, Anton McKay, Skye Ogden, Christian Read, Christian Scott, Tom Taylor and Mark Welsh.

Check out the official book website www.flinchbook.com for more information on the book. There are several page previews as well.

I would have given this book a miss had I visited their book website prior to buying.

[Mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though the idea of having a collection of short black and white gothic comics sounded great in principle, many of the stories in Flinch didn't quite work out. This is a tiny book with lots of contributions, and I don't think all the writers really embraced the short format. Some stories simply felt like a couple of pages had been taken from an existing comic and put in, making the story seem disjointed and unfinished. Like with many anthologies, I found the first in this collection to be by far, the strongest.

That said, the premise was cool, many of the stories were great, and the book also functions well as a sampler for lesser known writers and artists you might want to check out.

On a final note, given that this collection had many less mainstream artists and writers, it was disappointing that it still managed to have only about 5% female contributors (unsurprisingly, there were also very few female characters). When I look at even my mainstream comic collection there is greater female representation than that.

[Amanda Savieri · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting graphic novel filled with dark anthologies. From serial killers to HP Lovecraft, to aliens to monsters, this is a graphic novel with more depth than I think I could grasp. I found myself adoring some stories but equally loathing others. Having to write such short stories was the shortfall for many of these but as a whole, I think the subjects of grief, loss, fear, beliefs and sadness are all evident in most of these stories. That at least touched me to some degree. Not for your traditional graphic novel readers that pick up "comic's" for fun. This one displayed much more dark than it did much else. Which was indeed it's purpose. Not so much of a light read at all but an interesting one.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mixed bag obv, given it's short stories. Shaun Tan is excellent as always but contributed several drawings rather than a narrative. Night by Mel Tregonning had great artwork; I think the best in both story and artwork would have to be Speak of The Devil by Justin Randall and Chris Bones, though I have to say, 96,000m by Toms Taylor and Bonin made me laugh.

[Hugh's BigBookshelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some people seem to be turned off that this book is surreal and disturbing.
Uh...Hello? That's the point. And it accomplishes unease through its bizarre unsettling stories well.

[Giang · Rating 1 out of 5]

The short stories are a bit bland and end very abruptly, they are like jokes which take very long to establish and end without a punchline! I don't get it and I feel like the writers made no attempt to suggest any conclusions or even a cliff-hanger. The art is kinda boring, a bit too gory and morbid. The only thing I like is the book cover.

[Stephanie Alyson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories were better than others, but on the whole it was uncompelling and 'male gazy' to the point of misogynistic at points. Not for me.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Look, some where a lot better than others. The first one was my favourite, it had the best twist and the best tension.

[angelofmine1974 · Rating 1 out of 5]

My review of this book can be found on my YouTube Vlog at:

https://youtu.be/dlJ2ErURQWQ

Enjoy!

[Luna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short-story style comics from a variety of authors (including Shaun Tan, who did the cover and illustrated one of the comics). There's a variety of art styles on display, from the lush, Shaun Tan-style, to the more gritty revamped action-hero comic style to a real kitschy 50s style. I picked this up at a local convention last weekend, and it's dawned on me that I'm slowly getting a Shaun Tan collection.

Each comic touches on different natures of the human psyche, and what makes them tick. Some have a more horror feel than others, and some are just meant to cause shivers to go down ones spine.

There were three comics that were the standout for me-

Withheld, by Bobby.N, about a man being released from prison after being falsely accused.

96,000m, by Tom Taylor and Tom Bonin, which is about an expedition to go, well, 96,000m underwater (that being a personal fear of mine).

And lastly, Jack Coles Sketchbook, by Gary Chaloner, which appears to be more of a long-running webseries, but I really liked the art.

There were other stories I did enjoy, such as the Moral Lesson collection by Shaun Tan and Torn by Andrew Constant and Nicola Scott. Either way, if you get an opportunity to pick this up, give it a read. It only took me about half an hour at most (some of the comics are wordy, most aren't), and some of the art is just beautiful.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent collection of horror and psychological thriller stories ranging from quite intriguing to fairly worthless, but with more good in it than bad. If you're interested in horror comics it's definitely worth giving a try. The stories might not all be your cup of tea but I'm sure at least one of them will sit uncomfortably in the back of your mind while you're trying to fall asleep some cold winters night and, really, isn't that exactly what you're looking for when you crack the spine of a horror anthology?

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great anthology of short black and white comics from Western Australian publisher Gestalt all connected by the "flinch" theme. Shaun Tan provided the cover artwork and several illustrated pages throughout the book with the majority of the stories supplied by collaborations between known and lesser known writers and artists. Also, the second edition, released in 2013, is beefed up with extra stories and artwork than the first edition.

A disclaimer that my review may be biased as I illustrated Christian Read's Lovecraftian contribution "No Craft".

[Dave Trew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of dark and sometimes disturbing stories brought together by different storytellers and artists, each tale written and visually different from the last. An enjoyable read for lovers of graphic novels looking for something a little strange.

[Naberius]

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