The Anthology of Mind (2019)

A electric collection of wildly experimental exercises in form, content, and style.

This dynamic anthology of short stories features an exciting cross section of contemporary approaches to the medium that looks like the work of many cartoonists but is actually the work of one: Finnish cartoonist Tommi Musturi. The Anthology of Mind is a tour de force of formal experimentation and stylistic exploration and, as the title suggests, a window into the brain of one of the most creatively fearless cartoonists working today.

Flat, digital candy colors are juxtaposed against lush, fully painted pages; representational naturalism veers into wildly surreal abstraction; pixelated panels are interrupted by swaths of bold chiaroscuro. Musturi subverts the reader’s expectations, over and over again, of how style dictates form, and in doing so, also challenges himself to resist settling into complacency. “Style is a form of fear fear of change, fear of loss, and fear of being different,” according to the author. In The Anthology of Mind, Musturi confronts this form of fear head-on with one of the most visually stunning and creatively vital collections of short comics in recent memory.