Some of the Flight volumes have started to kind of pass me by year-by-year as good-but-not-great, but I really enjoyed a lot of the stories and the variety of art styles in this one. ( )

Great stories, beautiful art. It was late and I told myself I'd stop reading when I hit a story with art I didn't like, so I ended up reading the whole thing. ( )

Normally I do a short review of each story in these anthologies but I am pressed for time. In general this was a well done collection of graphic novel short stories. As with the last few volumes there was a mix of amazing and just okay stories.

As with previous volumes my favorites continue to be the stories by Kazu Kibuishi but I enjoyed some of the other short stories in here as well. There is some amazing artwork (and some not so amazing artwork). In general I feel like most of the stories were well done.

Overall I would recommend all the Flight graphic novels to those who enjoy sci-fi and fantasy graphic novels. I feel like the middle volumes were the best (3, 4, 5) and that the last few haven’t been quite as awesome. However they are all very good and feature a wide (and interesting) variety of graphic novel fantasy short stories. ( )

Summary: Flight is a series of comics anthologies that feature short pieces, on a variety of subjects but mostly all in the fantasy / sci-fi realm, from a variety of young graphic novel creators. Volume 8 involves flying shoes, imaginary friends, lonely robots, cursed fountains, reluctant ninjas, and endless labyrinths.

Review: This volume was solidly enjoyable, with lots of good-to-very-good stories, but nothing that really blew me out of the water. Favorites from Volume 8 were Kostas Kirikakis's "Encore", which was thematically similar to "Precious Cargo", but which features a chance meeting with an out-of-work circus performer, Cory Godbey's "The Clockmaker's Daughter", which had the same lovely painting style of "Onere and Piccola", and Matthew S. Armstrong's "Periwinkle in Try, Try Again", which features possibly the world's cutest penguin who just wants to fly. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: The Flight collections are an amazing outpouring of creativity, and well worth picking up whether you're just getting into graphic novels, or if you're an established comics reader who wants a sampling of what's out there. ( )