Potlatch: Comics to Benefit the SPA

I bought this book years ago. Like way before the pandemic years ago. It has to have been sometime between 2015 and 2019 when my wife and I were visiting Asheville NC annually because I remember the store where I got this book. It was an independent art store that sold work by local artists. Obviously, somebody who worked on this project was from the mountains of North Carolina.

Potlatch, which derives it's name from a Native American feast where gifts and large amounts of food are shared amongst different tribes, is an anthology title. The term is also where we get the word 'potluck', which more accurately describes this book as you have no idea what you're gonna get. Past volumes have benefited comic book publishing charities such as the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Sales for this edition from 2004 provides proceeds to be Small Press Association.

As with just about any anthology, it's really hard to rate it on quality as the skill levels of the talent ranges from 'why isn't this guy working for Marvel?' to 'when did this guy realize that becoming a professional comic book artist just wasn't in the cards?' A lot of what I read was forgettable. There were a few photocopied mini comics included in my copy. The one about a pair of villains who go on a talk show to explain how hard it is to be the baddie was the most memorable thing in the book. There was also Drake Maxwell, Private Eye. It was about a gumshoe who had to solve an alien abduction. Only the item missing is the alien's spaceship that has been stolen during a recent jaunt to the third rock from the Sun! I also received a couple of stickers of Japanese looking creatures that I think might make a fun prize for a friend of mine, that looked really nice. 

If I paid more than $5 dollars, I was probably gypped. Though it was for charity. So maybe I can be okay with having paid $10. But that's about it. Despite owning it for nearly a decade, this one is going to the used book store, hopefully for some trade credit. My luck, they won't take it because of how independent and unknown it is. But if they'll just take it off my hands, I'd be willing to take as little as 25 cents in trade to get this stinker off my hands.

Not Worth Consuming!

Rating: 3 out of 10 stars.