Dark Horse Comics has recently released a big, beautiful brick of a collection of Carla Speed McNeil’s long-running Finder comic—it’s called The Finder Library: Volume 1 and runs nearly 650 pages including extensive endnotes and a cover gallery. That collects three story arcs: “Sin Eater (Parts 1 & 2),” “King of the Cats,” and “Talisman.” Previously, these storylines have been available as trades published by McNeil’s own Lightspeed Press imprint.
Now, you can have them all in one big volume, which makes this collection an excellent jumping-in point for someone who’s managed to miss out on McNeil’s deliciously strange science fiction universe—a world that juxtaposes the tribal and the urban in a decaying, seemingly post-apocalyptic world, mixing tech with privation and hard living, the commoditization of “culture,” and all sorts of other interesting themes. (McNeil has a lot to say about exoticism in Finder, too.)
Finder has a really interesting publication history, which makes me appreciate this collection even more. It began in 1996 as a self-published pamphlet-style comic and continued with the single issue format until nearly the 40th issue, when McNeil switched to the then much-more-viable internet to continue publishing the comic. It’s now one of the biggest webcomics around, nabbing an Eisner for Best Webcomic in 2009. Mostly, it’s deeply cool to me that the comic has run for nearly fifteen years, over a variety of mediums, without losing steam.
Not to mention, that Eisner in 2009 for Best Webcomic is hardly its only award: the rest include seven other Eisner nominations, one Russ Manning award, one Kim Yale Award and two Ignatz Awards. So, yes. Finder is one of those indie-comics success stories and it honestly deserves all the hype. It’s still going strong online with new story-arcs, and a ninth trade, “Voices,” was just published in March 2011.
The first thing to note in the new Dark Horse collection is that you probably don’t want to borrow this from a library or a friend, especially if it looks nice, because you’re inevitably going to break the spine. I say this as a gentle, gentle book-reader, but it’s just impossible to avoid. Partially this is the sheer girth of the collection, which I’m not complaining about, and partially it’s that the art is sometimes a bit small in this format, necessitating close squinty reading with the book spread open on one’s lap. This is not a comic where you can ignore the backgrounds.
This isn’t really a complaint against Dark Horse, because I’m sure if the collection had been packaged in hardcover, it would have cost considerably more than its very reasonable $25. But—for that $25, it’s an excellent deal. Even if you have to break the spine to really read it.
Also, I’m intrigued by the choice to put all of the endnotes at the back instead of having them follow at the end of each arc as they were originally published. I recommend flipping to them at the end of each arc, before you forget what you were curious about. There are a whole lot of references, and a whole lot of super-cool endnotes. Then, read the arc again after the notes. There will be some great “aha!” moments.
Overall, I’m pleased with the price point and content of the collection, and truly glad that a whole new generation of comics readers will be encountering McNeil’s work. Women in comics need to get a better shake, as always, and Carla Speed McNeil is an awesome introduction to the work women are doing in the genre—plus, scifi!
Dark Horse has done a good turn for the industry by collecting these stories. Volume 2 is set to follow in September, and I suspect that there will eventually be a Volume 3 to catch up to the newest stories. I hope the Dark Horse/McNeil partnership continues, so I can keep having these great big collections.
Lee Mandelo is a multi-fandom geek with a special love for comics and queer literature. She can be found on Twitter and Livejournal.
