Oh, indie comics anthologies, how I love thee. You are the perfect place for creators to try out their darkest, silliest, or weirdest ideas. Where else can you find a dark and bloody vampire story followed up by a silly space adventure? Where else can you turn the page from an alternate reality WWII superhero tale to a gritty noir adventure? VS Comics is a new anthology that pushes the limit on what kinds of stories can be told through comics and delivers some real gems.

First up, we have Day and Night #4 written by James Moran with art by Patrick Walsh, Nathan Ashworth, and Mike Stock. This vampire tale sucked me right in from the start. The vampires are organized and powerful like an undead mafia, but the humans they are hunting down have just decided to fight back. The art here really explores the creepiness of the menacing vampires and plays a lot with light and darkness, which is fitting for a book called Day and Night.

Then, we have what might be my favorite of the stories, Tabby and Trout by Nich Angell. This is an over-the-top space adventure featuring a beer-guzzling, butt-kicking young woman and her companion, a giant space trout. The art is colorful and fun, but what really drew me into this book is the fun dialogue between Tabby and Trout. Their relationship is so relatable and “human” that it makes all the other wacky aspects of the story work.

Eponymous by Mike Garley with art by Martin Simmonds and Mike Stock is probably going to be the breakout star of this anthology. It is a dark look at the history of superheroes and how their creations were one of the necessary evils needed to defeat the Nazis in World War II. This alternate history is brought to life by Simmonds’ vivid art and is a terrifying retrospective on a world that could have been.

Finally, the VS Anthology rounds out with the Sentinel by Adam Christopher with art Nathan Ashworth. This is a prohibition-era noir mixed with elements of a love story. Like all good mysteries, there are a lot of interesting things going on behind the scenes that promise this will be an intriguing story filled with twists and turns.

VS is a wonderful anthology that left me wanting more. I started with Issue #4 but quickly picked up the previous issues to see what I had missed and to spend more time with these wonderful characters and interesting stories. Check out www.vscomics.co.uk for more information about this anthology and to get yourself a copy!