David Kelly and Robert Kirby obviously couldn’t content themselves with being talented authors, they also had to show they had good taste by giving other artists an opportunity to show their work. Boy Trouble is in fact a convincing anthology of short pieces ranging from rants by angry young men to romantic encounters and sometimes even both. The complete list of authors is Michael Fahy, Jeffery Kennedy (story), Nick Leonard, Christian Shroeder, Sina, Robert Kirby, David Kelly, Steve Matuszak, Jaime Cortez, Dan Seitler, R. Campbell, Roger Guillermo, Tim Piotrowski, JosuĂ© Menjivar, Andy Hartzell, D. Travers Scott (story), C. Bard Cole, Russ Turk and Jean-Paul Jennequin.
Feelings of alienation, young love, close encounters of the sex kind or the pitfalls of bar culture are recurring themes. Styles vary wildly, from the classic cartoony look by Kirby to underground outbursts by Nick Leonard.
Like all good anthologies, Boy Trouble introduces the reader to a number of artists and leaves us begging for more. More Boy Trouble (although I have a feeling we shouldn’t wait too hard for that), more gay-themed comics, more artists who have something to share with us and do it in such a personal way.
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MAJ 2010/07: the original comics are out-of-print, but a best-of has been published.