My Collection - CRITTERS [1986 Series]

Critters [1986 series]
40 issues [1986 - 1990]
1 - 38, 40, 50

A very entertaining funny animal book from Fantagraphics, CRITTERS ran as an anthology with up to #38, then ran various full issue stories from #39 to #49, returning to the anthology format for a big finale for #50.

I didn't start reading it until after it was cancelled, soon after I started reading USAGI YOJIMBO and looking for all the earlier stories. I liked the rest of those issues enough to start picking up the non-Usagi issues (Sakai has work in about a third of the issues).

Of course some were harder to find than others, and I only finally finished my collection of the anthology issues earlier this year. I still haven't read all the continued stories that appeared in it, as I was waiting to have all the chapters. And you hardly ever see the non-anthology issues around (I suspect they might sometimes be filed by the feature name, like "Fission Chicken" or "Birthright").

Still worth keeping, even with all the Usagi stuff available in tradepaperbacks. The "Gnuff" series by Freddy Milton (a heavily Carl Barks inspired series about a dinosaur family) appears in about half the issues, and is always worth reading. A good mix of single issue stories and serialized stories throughout. Also notable, #23 has a flexidisc with Ty Templeton's "Teddy Payne" on one side and Alan Moore's "Sinister Ducks" on the other.