Tales of an Imperfect Future is a message from the Intergalactic Commission to us Earthlings, showing us just how doomed we truly are unless we change our ways. Tales is a collection of shorts chronically just how screwed humanity is. It’s also rather boring. I’m not opposed to collected short works, and I thought I would enjoy this much more than I did, but ultimately, I was pretty bored while reading this and had a hard time staying focused. Most of the short stories seemed unrelated, once you’re past the whole ‘dire warning from the aliens’ thing, and this was the book’s downfall, for me at least.
Tales is meant to be a satire, and I see it at times. I found Stanley and Arthur’s tale most entertaining- and I only remember their names because they showed up twice- and there were a couple of memorable shorts including a pair of stranded astronauts floating through space without oxygen, and an explorer requesting help because he’s been left alone on a planet with the wrong kind of robot. But the short stories that did stick with me did so for the wrong reasons; the stranded astronauts stuck because that was a terribly depressing story, one of a sacrifice made in vain and no hope for survival unless protocol is followed. The explorer requesting help was probably meant to be funny but was really rather pointless and a touch homophobic. (I had to roll my eyes a bit.)
The Hunt stood out to me as well, partly because it was incredibly sad and partly because it was a bit Hunger Games -esque. Stanley and Arthur’s two shorts were probably the most easily recognized as satire. They managed to rip on our over-reliance on technology while also mocking the extreme disdain of technology.
Tales has a place somewhere, but it’s not on my bookshelf. This one just didn’t work for me, but I can imagine there are those who would enjoy it. I found the overall premise only mildly entertaining, and the individual stories pretty boring. Humans still live but humanity is gone, blah blah blah. There just wasn’t enough substance in this book for me; plus, while the black and white art was extremely well drawn, the lack of colors was actually distracting for me.
Overall, I can’t recommend this book too highly, because I thought I would really enjoy it and I didn’t. But I don’t want to knock it too much, as I can certainly see its appeal to others.
Score: 3/5
Writer/Artist/Creator: Alfonso Font Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Price: $17.99 Release Date: 11/19/14 Format: Hardcover; Print/Digital