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lauren_endnotes's review
3.0
Great concept: real postcards found in various antique shops in the US, and stories imagined around the short paragraphs on the back. The idea to turn this into a graphic novel was brilliant, and I liked seeing so many styles of writing and illustration together. I found the annotations of each card to be distracting and unnecessary, but the stories themselves were entertaining - about 3 or 4 pages of art based on these words, completely out of context.
tiamatq's review
4.0
I bought this book a few years ago at SDCC and I finally got around to reading it. Writers and artists come together to tell stories based off of older postcards and the messages written on them. It's an interesting exercise, and the stories range from sweet romances to creepy murder mysteries, histories and childhoods to campy superheros. My two favorites were "A Joyous Eastertide," a man's memory of his devoted stepmother, who had Tourette's Syndrome, and "Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland," a story of a lost romance, discovered only after a funeral unearths an old, hidden postcard. There are a couple of stories/artwork that is hit-and-miss, but overall I enjoyed this collection so much, particularly compared to other collections like Comic Book Ink. There's a lot more to relate to in this collection, and it will have you thinking about the stories behind postcards... and those that could have been!
jmanchester0's review
4.0
What a fascinating idea.
There was so much sorrow in these stories. Even the happy ones.
If it's any indication, artists and poets are a morbid and sad lot. But most times I count myself among them.
I think the most fantastic- and most emotional - was A Joyous Eastertide.
There was so much sorrow in these stories. Even the happy ones.
If it's any indication, artists and poets are a morbid and sad lot. But most times I count myself among them.
I think the most fantastic- and most emotional - was A Joyous Eastertide.
tumbly_weed's review
4.0
I'm surprised by the number of negative reviews for this book, it was a bit of a tough call for me to put 4/5 rather 5/5, in fact.
I picked this book up and flipped to one of the (many) sad, moving stories and immediately bought it as a gift for my then-boyfriend-now-husband. It's true many of the stories are sad, but I find this makes sense with the medium they're derived from: postcards of people that the artists don't know, almost all of whom have certainly died, and a sense of loss and "missed connection" between the present-day reader of the card and the unknown author. I think this inevitably results in a more sober view. That said, many of the stories are not just similar in that regard, but a bit over the top dramatic and tragic, which is where I deducted a star. I think more creativity could've drawn out different types of stories, even if they all had this level of seriousness.
I don't read a lot of graphic novels (not now at least), but I really enjoyed the artwork styles, and liked the fact that they fit well with each other. I also appreciated being able to see the postcard at the beginning of each story, but I would've rather had a full page view of the postcard so that I could read and appreciate the postcard better, rather than having the editor's comments about and reason for picking that card, which were often redundant.
Tl;dr This anthology is a pleasure to read and have, and is a nice gift for anyone, whether or not they're "into" graphic novels, because the content is universal, sentimental and lovely.
I picked this book up and flipped to one of the (many) sad, moving stories and immediately bought it as a gift for my then-boyfriend-now-husband. It's true many of the stories are sad, but I find this makes sense with the medium they're derived from: postcards of people that the artists don't know, almost all of whom have certainly died, and a sense of loss and "missed connection" between the present-day reader of the card and the unknown author. I think this inevitably results in a more sober view. That said, many of the stories are not just similar in that regard, but a bit over the top dramatic and tragic, which is where I deducted a star. I think more creativity could've drawn out different types of stories, even if they all had this level of seriousness.
I don't read a lot of graphic novels (not now at least), but I really enjoyed the artwork styles, and liked the fact that they fit well with each other. I also appreciated being able to see the postcard at the beginning of each story, but I would've rather had a full page view of the postcard so that I could read and appreciate the postcard better, rather than having the editor's comments about and reason for picking that card, which were often redundant.
Tl;dr This anthology is a pleasure to read and have, and is a nice gift for anyone, whether or not they're "into" graphic novels, because the content is universal, sentimental and lovely.
pussreboots's review
5.0
Postcards isn't a single graphic novel. Rather, it is sixteen graphic short stories. Jason Rodriguez gave an old postcard to sixteen different writer and artist teams to see what they could create given the information contained on their card. The stories included in this volume are:
* "Blue" by Chris Stevens and Gia-Bao Tran
* "Time" by Tom Beland
* "Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland" by Jay Busbee and Tony Fleecs
* "Taken on Faith" by Ande Parks and Joseph Bergin III
* "Send Louis His Underwear"
by Matt Dembicki and Jason Copland
* "Res Libero" by A. David Lewis and Danielle Corsetto
* "Homesick" by Joshua Fialkov and Micah Farritor
* "Cora's Dress" by James W. Powell and Drew Gilbert
* "A Joyous Eastertide" by Phil Hester
* "Tic-Tac-Bang-Bang" by Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos
* "Quarantined" by Jason & RJ Rodriguez and Seamus Heffernan
* "Best Side Out" by Antony Johnston and Noel Tuazon
* "Intersections" by Neil Kleid and Jake Allen
* "The Midnight Caller" by Robert Tinnell and Brandon & Brian Fraim
* "Operation Torch" by Rick Spears and Rob G
* "A History of a Marriage" by Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner, and Matt Kindt
From this diverse list, my favorites are "Blue" for its magical take on an old memory, "Send Louis His Underwear" for its gory counterpoint between the humorous text and the pictures, and "A History of a Marriage" for its bittersweet look at widower's recollection of his marriage.
As the postcards used in the book were all very old (mostly dating from the 1910s), the stories frequently deal with death and loss. It's only natural to see ghosts in ephemera.
Postcards is now nominated for an Eisner Award. Read the details on Jason Rodriguez's blog.
* "Blue" by Chris Stevens and Gia-Bao Tran
* "Time" by Tom Beland
* "Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland" by Jay Busbee and Tony Fleecs
* "Taken on Faith" by Ande Parks and Joseph Bergin III
* "Send Louis His Underwear"
by Matt Dembicki and Jason Copland
* "Res Libero" by A. David Lewis and Danielle Corsetto
* "Homesick" by Joshua Fialkov and Micah Farritor
* "Cora's Dress" by James W. Powell and Drew Gilbert
* "A Joyous Eastertide" by Phil Hester
* "Tic-Tac-Bang-Bang" by Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos
* "Quarantined" by Jason & RJ Rodriguez and Seamus Heffernan
* "Best Side Out" by Antony Johnston and Noel Tuazon
* "Intersections" by Neil Kleid and Jake Allen
* "The Midnight Caller" by Robert Tinnell and Brandon & Brian Fraim
* "Operation Torch" by Rick Spears and Rob G
* "A History of a Marriage" by Harvey Pekar, Joyce Brabner, and Matt Kindt
From this diverse list, my favorites are "Blue" for its magical take on an old memory, "Send Louis His Underwear" for its gory counterpoint between the humorous text and the pictures, and "A History of a Marriage" for its bittersweet look at widower's recollection of his marriage.
As the postcards used in the book were all very old (mostly dating from the 1910s), the stories frequently deal with death and loss. It's only natural to see ghosts in ephemera.
Postcards is now nominated for an Eisner Award. Read the details on Jason Rodriguez's blog.
booksandbosox's review
4.0
I found this a really interesting idea. The editor, a collector of vintage postcards, enlisted his comic book writer and artist friends to present short graphic stories based on the postcards. The concept is so cool and the postcards chosen are fascinating in and of themselves. It was really cool to see where the authors/artists took the stories. I think in nearly every introduction, the editor was saying "well they didn't see the same thing I did when I read this one," which is what makes this anthology so cool. A couple were misses for me, but on the whole, I really liked this.
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