Review by Woodrow Phoenix
Delay is an anthology featuring sixteen Southeast Asian creators from Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Anthologies usually have a topic to bind the individual contributions together, and the characters seen on the cover (with more on the wraparound back cover) all stuck at the same bus stop in the rain, are all dealing with the same experience. As the intro from co-editor Paolo Chikiamco explains, the eleven stories are themed around the passage of time “or rather, the expectations we hang upon it. Delay, after all, is not about the length of time that passes but the deviation from a schedule, a plan … Carrying us from the games of our childhood to our dreams of the future, past fears of mortality to the solace of memory.”
Most of the artists and writers may be new to readers outside of South Asia, but they aren’t new to storytelling, being seasoned comics artists, illustrators, television scriptwriters, animation artists and educators. The 22-page average length of these strips gives them more space than is usual for short story collections, allowing for character studies that can go a little deeper to explore the personalities of their protagonists and how the concept of ‘delay’ changes the trajectory of their journeys through life in big, dramatic ways or on a subtle level.
Starting with ‘Ad Astra’ by Nicolette Lee, a stylish conversation between two women in an isolated landscape that turns out to be the end of all things or the beginnings of everything, and ending with ‘The Other World’ by Cathryn Vania, about a woman moving between past, present and future, there’s a lot of emotion. Regrets, ethical dilemmas, grief and heartache occur as it seems that when made to pause and reflect on life, what everyone wants is a chance to do it differently. The intriguing elements of South Asian culture and customs woven in to these stories makes them all less generic and more memorable. As with all anthologies, the broad spread of talents and styles mean that some creators don’t manage to make much of their pagecount, but there is enough for Delay to be a good intro to a group of interesting storytellers who you may want to keep an eye on for the future.
