By Justin McCarty

This year's Millarworld Annual is out! Another new batch of writers and artists to look out for next year. Mark Millar has given a few up-and-coming artists their big break working on a few of Millarworld’s biggest titles. I was excited to see this out; I now have some artists to watch for over the next few months!

The way the annual works is Millarworld puts out a call on their forums for linework samples from artists and short story submissions based on Millarworld characters from writers. This year's titles are Kick-Ass, Huck, Nemesis, Superior, Empress, and Super Crooks. I encourage you to pick up the book to check these stories out for yourself. The stories are a little rough in places; it is their first published work for a lot of these creators after all. All of them are worth checking out. My favorite is the Huck story, the artwork and storytelling on that story married really well for me.

I don’t really intend to judge any of the stories in the usual way - that is to give my opinion on whether a comic was successful and worth picking up. The annual’s goal is to introduce the world to just a few of the unknown creators out there using Millarworld’s platform and Image’s reach. On that criteria, it is successful. It's worth picking up if you are an aspiring creator. If the Millarworld Annual sells they’ll keep doing it. That means you might have a chance to get in it one day. Thumbs up!

On Kick-Ass, Edgy Ziane did the art for “Trick Or Cheat” written by Emma Sayle. Will Mclaren wrote “Rulebook” for Empress with art from Luana Vecchio. Artwork for Superior was done by Alex Aguilar and written by Simon James. The Nemesis story had Marcelo Salaza doing art with a script from Steve Lawrence. Martin Renard wrote “The Anniversary” for Supercrooks, Robert Carey handled the art. Lastly, Huck “Home Sweet Huck” had Jake Elphick on art and the script was written by Stephanie Cooke.

All of the stories had something going for them. And, if you're into anthologies or annuals with multiple artists, Millarworld Annual is a great grab. See for yourself some of the comic industry's future wiz-kids. The profits go to the Hero Initiative.

Score: 5/5

Millarworld Annual 2017
Published by Image Comics