Review: OH, Comics #21, "Magic"

OH, Comics #21, “Magic”, is the 25^th anniversary issue of Bob Corby’s  great anthology.  As you can tell by the numbering, the anthology has been produced almost every year since 1988.  The book began as a collection of mostly-Ohio artists creating strips for a photocopied and hand folded and stapled small press book that was sold at the Mid-Ohio Con in benefit of the March of Dimes.  Mid-Ohio con is no longer, and I don’t know of any conventions supporting the March of Dimes anymore, but OH, Comics is still around.  It is currently published annually and premieres at Bob Corby’s SPACE Convention every spring.

But enough history.  On to the reviews!

The theme of this year’s issue is Magic, and Max Ink starts us out with a story of his great character Blink with her friends Sam and Hank discussing musicals.  The story is called “Oh, the Magic of Musicals” and the group discuss musicals from “Xanadu” to “Singin’ in the Rain” to the immortal “All that Jazz”.  The art is wonderful and the conversation is interesting and feels very real.  I must however admit I have not seen any of the movies discussed in the story except The Beatles’ “Help” and “Magical Mystery Tour”.  The latter of which is probably on the same level as Xanadu.

The second story is mine.  “The Magic Spear” pits my patriotic hero, the First Lady against a Nazi vampire.  Because I couldn’t think of anything more evil than that!

Next is “The Box Elder” by Canada Keck.  It’s the story of a magical place to read, and I can’t think of anything more magical than reading, so I give Canada the prize for the best on-theme idea in this years’ anthology.  It’s a nice, sweet story with cute artwork.

“Do You Believe in Magic” by Matt Levin incorporates classical rock lyrics, stamps, and effects to give the reader a nice experience.  I can hear the melodies as I read along.

Pam Bliss (who also drew the great cover to this issue) contributes “Clarke’s Third Law”.  A tale of science, magic, and time travel.  Great line art and characterization in this one.

Kel Crum tells a Cornelia tale about snarky up-grading people.  He does a great job making them very annoying.  I think the vast majority of us can relate to this one.

Mike Carroll’s RAINBOW characters tell about their time as Ninjas.  Really bad Ninjas as it turns out, but Mike draws great Ninjas and that’s what really matters!  There’s a also an evil Wizard in this funny tale so it even fits the theme!

Then we have “Onion City” by Sue Olcott involving a cute animal that turns invisible that meets Onion and Radish.  Yep, it’s rather odd.  But it’s magic!

Bob Corby himself anchors the book with a short little tale of Marcel the Penguin performing stage magic.  It’s helpful to know something about Bob’s characters to enjoy this.  But they’re rather cheap and available from Bob via the same website you can order OH, Comics #21 from!

Bob  promoting OH, Comics #1