Reptile House identifies itself as “a Philly-based lowbrow comic quarterly.” This seventh issue is a dense 48 pages of the dozen contributors simply going for it. I don’t get the sense that these guys hold back.

There’s some underground aesthetic in there but no one is content to stay within that tradition. Some pieces are more avant-garde than others but there’s probing exploration throughout.

Standard Anthology Caveat^TM regarding consistency of pieces but I found something interesting about every one of them. That’s really all I can ask for from an anthology. I’m down for issue #8.

I have no outside information on this group of artists but this comic feels like a glimpse into a tight scene, reverberating off of each other, pushing each other to go further, maybe having some cool parties. It’s fun to think, “Oh yeah, Philadelphia, they got that Reptile House crew.”

• Reptile House Comix
• Instagram: @reptilehousecomix