Kelly Sue DeConnick and Andy MacDonald’s “Leap” is another one. The focus here is on our human tendency to hide our real selves behind layers and layers of assumed identities, emotional baggage, and material possessions. We could all meditate for hours on what we’ve tried to hide beneath in our lives and it would likely be a profitable exercise, but “Leap” doesn’t invite us to do that. Instead, it pushes us towards the solution. Again, deeply human, but you’ve got to have the robots to tell it like they tell it.

Full review here.

You don’t even have to register.

EDITED TO ADD: Er… whoops.  I posted this a little late. Oh, well. 24seven still won!

Ivan says, “Image Comics and the 70 creators of 24seven v2 broke their backs to get the book in EARLY to the printer and to Diamond… barring some freakish shipping debacle, it’ll hit stores NEXT WEDNESDAY, July 25th and we’ll have copies of it and the 1st volume at the San Diego Comic-Con, BOOTH 2729!”

If you look carefully, you’ll see my name in there among the contributors…

Edited to Add: Preorder Code JUN071889 24 SEVEN VOL 2 GN $19.99.

Coming this summer from Image Comics and Ivan Brandon. I’ve got a little 4-page story in it called “Leap” (again with Muscles MacGunshow). It’s full of friends, too — Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, Seth Peck, Phil Hester, Carla Speed McNeil, Ben Templesmith, Jason Aaron, Justin Randall and Jason Latour — so look for it.

24SEVEN v2 TEASER

Originally uploaded by Ivan Brandon.

Teaser art for the second 24seven anthology. Click through to see larger images.

EDITED TO ADD: Much larger version linked through LYING IN THE GUTTERS on CBR. Scroll down near the bottom and click through.

The second [24seven] anthology grew out of the first one, said [Ivan] Brandon, who compiled the book as editor and wrote a few stories for it. “It was sort of a haphazard thing. The contacts that I had hunted down the first time have expanded and beyond that a lot of people I look up to and respect have approached me.” Once again the book will offer stories of robots against an urban backdrop. But this time the subject matter has expanded–a bit. “A lot of the people gravitated toward robot characters inspired somewhat by robots in my own previous works but in this case it has a much wider context,” Brandon said. “The creators have completely taken any preconceptions away and re-interpreted the basic idea of urban robots from scratch in a wide range of different direction–anything from an underwater robotic city to sentient robot dogs playing poker.”

Because Ivan is gracious and kind, I am getting to work with Andy MacDonald again for part two.

If you haven’t picked up volume one, it’s still available in the Amazon store for as little as $10.99.