‘Island’ anthology to end with issue #15

Island co-editor Brandon Graham took to Twitter on Saturday to announce that the anthology will come to an end with issue #15.

ISLAND ends with issue 15 @emmartian pic.twitter.com/QguS6ySBl1

— Brandon Graham (@royalboiler) February 25, 2017

Co-editor Emma Rios also commented:

Just read all the tweets about Island and I got tears in my eyes now. Thanks so much for all the love. It was a good thing. @royalboiler

— emma ríos (@emmartian) February 25, 2017

Published by Image Comics, Island debuted in July of 2015 as an anthology featuring stories by some of comics’ most innovative creators, including Amy Clare, Malachi Ward, Matt Sheean, Farle Dalrymple, Johnnie Christmas, Fil Barlow, Michael DeForge and many others. It regularly included essays, pin-ups and other material in addition to comics. Several of the stories originally published in it have been collected, including A Land Called Tarot by Gael Bertrand and Habitat by Simon Roy. The comics included in it varied widely in style, genre and creators, with perhaps the most prevalent theme being that of world-building — considering the title, that was always fitting. It’s a shame to see it go, and hopefully some of the stories will find life as collections or in other venues down the line.

“I firmly believe that anthologies are the lifeblood of the comics medium – think of METAL HURLANT, 2000AD, RAW and the like, and try to imagine the medium without them,” Warren Ellis said in his weekly email newsletter on Sunday. “And it takes editors deeply embedded in the comics community, like Graham and Rios, to make them – think of Jean-Pierre Dionnet, Francois Mouly, Pat Mills, Paul Gravett.

“ISLAND came close to cracking its format – the original, oversized, 72-page version with the spine, though incompletely designed and observed, was the perfect vehicle for a monthly anthology. While I don’t think their experiments with the nature of serialisation quite worked, they brought some remarkable pieces to market, were continuing to evolve and were showing unusual and original creators to a wider audience. It will be missed, both for what it was and what it could have become.”

Island #15 arrives in March.