Tales of an Imperfect Future

'Tales of an Imperfect Future'

by Alfonso Font

Dark Horse Books, November 2014

 

'Tales of an Imperfect Future' (88 pp.) was published as a hardbound graphic novel by Dark Horse books in 2014.

 

Spanish artist Alfonso Font (b. 1946) is a prolific illustrator of comics in a variety of genres, for publishers throughout Europe and the USA. A number of his works have been translated into English; my review of his 1982 graphic novel 'Prisoner of the Stars' is available here.  

 

My review of the UK comic 'Black Max,' which Font illustrated, is here.

 

'Tales of an Imperfect Future' is an English-language compilation of a series of science fiction comics, titled Cuentos de un futuro imperfecto, that Font did in 1980-1981 for the Spanish comic magazine (revista) 1984. 

 

Over the years, these comics have been collected in Spanish editions:

 

The Dark Horse edition has the rather attenuated resolution of the artwork, presumably because it was scanned from archived printed pages of the comics, rather than the original artwork. That said, the panels look decent enough, and you can see where Font incorporated some Zip-A-Tone.

 

Font's artwork has a looser and less ornate style, more in line with that of Jordi Bernet, than the other Spanish artists of the 1980s, such as Esteban Maroto, Jose Gonzalez, and Julio Ribera.

The plots for the six- and eight-page stories printed in 'Tales' reflect a mordant sensibility, with surprise endings popping up in the last panel or two of each story. The characters appearing in Font's work are often hapless victims of circumstance, or mankind's talent for self-destruction.

If you're looking for science fiction comics with a Heavy Metal magazine flavor, then 'Tales of an Imperfect Future' is a good investment.