by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean

Kazu Kibuishi is a creator who believes that a man can reach for the heavens above.

Originally published through Image Comics, comic book fans instantly fell in love with the wonderful stories within the two Flight compilations that'd been made available thus far.

Critics praised the efforts of both his and fellow creators who're made up of rising stars as well as the comic, film and animation industries' pros.

Last year, an established book trade publisher took notice.

It's about to take flight again end of this month when Kibuishi and Ballantine Books present the third Flight anthology to an even wider audience.

The creator has made it known on his blog and related websites that he's seen and read the published version of the new Flight. According to Kibuishi, it's been an interesting journey. "I'm just glad that the dust is all settled so that we can focus on creating good content for the readers," he told Newsarama. "With this book, I finally feel like we're making major strides towards being a more professional outfit, since I was able pay advances against royalties to the artists, get proper contracts made out, and the book wasn't rushed through the printing process. I remember thinking that the scheduling for Flight at Ballantine seemed so far ahead of what was necessary. It turned out that we would use nearly every day of that extra time, and we were able to produce the book at a comfortable pace so that we could get everything just right."

In terms of marketing, Kibuishi and some of the creators involved have had some experiences in this area as they were/are also working on and self-promoting their own comics and various projects. And it's a no-brainer that marketing a comic book and/or an original graphic novel is no child's play. However, the third volume of Flight has leveraged on Ballantine's proven record in getting the word out to the general public. "Whatever they've been doing so far has been great, since the jump in initial preorders from Volume 2 to Volume 3 has been nearly tenfold, but that could simply be because we're exposed to a much wider, well-established trade book marketplace.

"As for the trickle-down effect of being involved in Flight, it's really hard to gauge. A few of the Flight artists have gotten separate book deals, but I believe that in every case they would have found success with their book pitches even if Flight weren't around.

As mentioned, the latest volume features creators who'd made a name for themselves on the comic book publishing front as well as webcreators/cartoonists, film and animation experts such as Becky Cloonan (East Coast Rising, American Virgin, DEMO), Paul Harmon (Mora, Sea of Red), Dave Roman (co-creator of the Harvey Award-nominated series Jax Epoch and the Quicken Forbidden, the Ignatz award-winning Teen Boat and the award-winning webcomic Astronaut Elementary), Chuck BB (Secret Skull with horror specialist Steve Niles), Azad Injejikian (Sammy: Tourist Trap, A Very Sammy Day and the upcoming Clean Living with B. Clay Moore), Catia Chen (Danny Phantom), and other returning contributors like Michael Gagné (Insanely Twisted Rabbits, ZED, "Batman: Spore" in Detective Comics #776-780), Kean Soo, Khang Le, Rad Sechrist, and several first-timers as well. "First off, Michel Gagné is my hero," Kibuishi noted. "His stories have been the first installments of both Flight 2 and 3 not only because they feel appropriately energetic, but because he's our vanguard, carrying the Flight flag and charging ahead before anyone else, inspiring people along the way. I wish I had half the energy Michel has. He makes me feel lazy!

"As with the first two volumes of Flight, Volume Three features a very eclectic mix of talents, but I also think that this is the most cohesive book. With the exception of Bill Plympton's and Yoko Tanaka's stories, much of the production for this volume took place on our private forum, with constant feedback for every contributor. In the case of the others books, while there was a lot of production taking place in our private forum, the artists didn't utilize it quite as much as they did this time around. This probably has to do with the fact that many of the newcomers were very web-savvy.

"Editorially, this has been the most hands-on book so far, with so many people open to critics and comments on their work. It's really reflected in the very cohesive feel of this volume. As far as the critiques themselves, the artists still hold each other to a very high standard, so I'm constantly impressed by the observations and suggestions people make, especially by Kean, Phil, and Neil."

What about editorial input from Ballantine, if any? "On the creative front, we were pretty much left alone to do our thing, which is what we asked [for]. Their copy editors, however, have laser X-Ray vision. They caught so many little errors that we didn't catch the first time around. I learned a lot about text spacing and punctuation while fixing Bill Plympton's comic alone.

"One of the things I really liked seeing in this volume was the emergence of people's personal ongoing mythologies, complete with characters I had seen them sketch out before," he continued. "While not immediately noticeable, many of the stories in Volume 3 are parts of much larger tales. Stories like Rad Sechrist's "Beneath the Leaves - Lemming City", Reagan Lodge's "Tea", Paul Harmon's "Wurmler of the West", and Alex Fuentes's "One Little Miracle for a Hungry Swarm" are short stories that will fit into the larger sagas that the characters are a part of, taking after the models set by Khang Le and Michel Gagné in Volume Two. I'm very interested in seeing how this manga-influenced structure will pan out for Flight.

"As for the stories that really hit me, I would have to say that Neil Babra's "In Due Time" and Phil Craven's "The Rescue" had the strongest effect on me, while I feel that Tony Cliff's "Old Oak Trees" really set the tone for the entire book. Again, it's really hard to pick any favorites, since I love them all for different reasons."

It should also be made known that Ballantine is repackaging the first two volumes. "Like Image, Ballantine lets us design the books, so we'll be handling the redesigns at my studio. Besides taking the "Volume 1" and "Volume 2" text off the front covers, I think the redesigns will be minimal. I'd like to make it so the spines match better, and they'll most likely be printed on the same stock as Volume Three."