The Comics Journal

In #19, Reynolds shifted gears and used fewer but longer entries to put together perhaps the single best issue of the entire series (only #12 surpasses it in my estimation). Beyond its quality, Mome 19 also seems to be the issue that best reflects Reynolds’ taste as an editor. Reynolds has always been more on the underground side of the fence than in the literary fiction camp when it comes to comics. This issue’s mix of the transgressively funny, pulpish noir, surrealism, scatology and innovation was sequenced in such a way that every transition from story to story was nearly seamless. More importantly, the stories frequently complemented each other in a way that acted as a form of editorial storytelling on its own.