Cover: A Shay Hahn
Inside Cover: Ken Lamug
Buffalo Wings
Words: Lou Frontier
Pencils, Inks, and Letters: A Shay Hahn
Colors: Steve Benton
Travelers Inn
Cover: Ken Lamug
Cover Colors: Steve Benton
Words: Lou Frontier
Pencils, Inks, and Letters: Ken Lamug
Colors: Steve Benton
Witika
Cover: James Linares
Words: Lou Frontier
Art: Steve Benton
American Bison/Wicker Page
Pencils and Inks: JR Orte
Colors: DC Alonso
Wicker/American Bison Spread
Art: Kristofor Harris
Wicker
Cover: Ken Lamug
Cover Color: Mike Spicer
Words: Lou Frontier
Pencils, Inks, and Letters: Ken Lamug
Colors: Steve Benton
American Bison, Benton and Frontier, are ideas and creators that I’m familiar with from prior interviews and reviews; so when I had the chance to check out American Bison Short Stories I thought it would interesting to see the progression. Progression and interesting are two very poor understatements because the progression is innovative and that fact is more than interesting.
What I find most interesting is the fact that it’s a collection of short stories that makes up about forty pages of comic goodness. Not that short story formatting is all that different but the fact that Benton reached out to a ton of different artists to assist in the creation is something that I find admirable. Getting just three or four people on the same page to create a single issue can be challenging enough but wrangling together multiple artists for multiple short stories had to be a challenge in itself. Lou Frontier helmed the writing chair and kept the stories on course making them similar enough to stay within the world of American Bison but different enough to keep every story unique. Each short has its own feel and they’re all certainly separate from each other while still being in the same universe and/or world. Clearly Frontier has a vision for his version of American Bison and his vision is in line with Benton’s original idea that was launched with the original American Bison.
The art of American Bison is hard to pin down because the collaboration efforts were focused on artists rather than writers. This would be the first time I have seen such a grand adventure in collaboration as an indie comic lover and I certainly hope it isn’t the last. Because of the fact they were short stories I feel like I got a perfect amount of flavor from each different artist team and it wasn’t heavy one way or the other. The even keel of artists throughout made the read go by very fast; it didn’t feel like forty pages, it felt like ten, and the arrangement of stories helped to make it feel as such. The art of Travelers Inn is so much different from the surrounding shorts that it served as a little break from the norm and gave my eyes something different taking the focus from art to story and rebooting my eyes for the last half of shorts. Each artist brings something new and exciting to their short and I feel like that is the perfect way to collaborate.
American Bison is an Insane Comic and Insane can be found in print or digital on their website or American Bison can be found on Comixology.
