Broken Frontier

Thanks for stopping by for this week’s edition of Guiding Lines.  This is Broken Frontier’s comic book recommendation column and I’m your leggy (and very affordable) escort, Scott Hinze.  One of comic book’s never-ending question each publisher, editor and creator asks themselves is “Who are we making this for?”  Usually inside the profitable, mainstream productions, the answer is ‘comic book readers’ or ‘our comic book readers’ or ‘fans of character X.’  It would be stupid to go too far outside of these parameters because, frankly, they’re aren’t many new people seeing what is hitting the shelves each week.  And that is really the trick to the even bigger question, “Where are the new/returning readers?”

The easy answer is that they are playing video games or watching movies.  New games cost the same as about 20 comic issues.  If the books are given a liberal read time of 15 minutes each, that’s 5 hours of reading compared to around 30 – 60+ hours of interactive content.  Looking at movies as competition is a whole lot better with a new release costing the same as about 5 or 6 issues which you can breeze through much quicker than a DVD without special features.  Let’s not even get into rentals and piracy!

The tough answer is that they don’t care.  Non-readers aren’t really thinking about the money they’re saving or time spent not reading, they just can’t seem to find a good reason to read.  With both games and flicks, they can bring up latest releases to practically anyone and have a conversation about them.  With comics, we must pro-actively seek out our fellow readers and provide them reason to read in the form of good book recommendations and discussion. This isn’t the main topic of today’s piece, but here’s a few quick tips to sequential art evangelism: it works a whole lot better aiming for reader’s particular interests in pairs, so bring a friend when giving the office Buffy fan Joss Whedon’s FRAY.  Also, hand them something completely different along with the main recommendation just to open their eyes about the diversity out here.  When you hand the cool hipster at Starbucks the District X trade you’ve been telling him about, slide in an issue of Walking Dead to use as a bookmark.

When you finally nab their prolonged interest, you’ll earn the right to be heard and they’ll keep coming back to you for more… which is exactly what I’m trying to do with this column.  If you look back on my time as a writer for this piece, you’ll notice I’ve given the spotlight to a different publisher and a different genre each week.  Well, this time I have to bend the rules a bit. 

‘WildStorm Signature Series’ is an excellent little imprint of California-based WildStorm comics (owned by DC Comics) and they churn out some amazing books like Astro City, Ex Machina, Winter Men, Matador, and Desolation Jones.  One stunning gem of theirs is Silent Dragon.  I know, I know… I’ve covered a DC book with Fables and a Sci-Fi read with The Surrogates, but this read was too good to pass up.  Hey, my only superhero suggestion has been out of Slave Labor Graphics – give a guy a break!

Silent Dragon is a 6-part mini-series that follows our betrayed and reborn hero, Reizo as he forces himself in-between the government regime and his former yakuza clan.  The co-creators (and co-owners) of the book are artist Leinil Yu & writer Andy Diggle.  Many will recognize Leinil’s astounding artwork from Superman: Birthright.  This time, the master artist pushes himself to the limit.  He maximizes his use of shadows in the grittier world, adds even more detail to the sci-fi romp and constantly gives us angles and layers of scenes we’ve never seen before.  You can really see how much fun Leinil is having on every page and panel.

The former editor of Britain’s beloved 2000AD comic series, Mr. Diggle scripts this futuristic, Japanese mafia adventure.   I could list the chores a writer must make in weaving a clear story together and how easy he makes it look, but I won’t even though he does – I’ve already spent too much space on why this is an important book on a holistic level.  The combination of traditional Japanese style and dress against high-tech weapons and robots isn’t new, but the excellent craftsmanship the two professionals bring makes every panel feel completely original.

I don’t go into too much detail about the story or actual events in many of these recommendations because (as I said in my first column) I truly want to avoid spoilage.  These reads are so fine that if you wish to wait for the trade paperback or are only hearing how good this series is now and are picking up back-issues now, I want you to have as complete a reading experience as I have had.  You’ll thank me after issue #1.  After-all, aren’t we all non-readers of some great hidden comic out there?

Guiding Line:  In this wonderful combination of Count of Monte Cristo and Aeon Flux, two industry-darlings offer the comic book gods the most valuable gift imaginable: something new that can truly turn jaded non-readers on.

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Since this marks my half-way point in writing this ramble every week, I figure I’ve earned enough web-cred around these parts to bring up a shameless plug.  Everyone can understand passionate fans that frequent comic news sites and creator pages, the artwork and insight is well worth the short amount of time invested to surf.  But if a reader dips their toe into the growing world of comic book podcast, they not only also have a vast amount of content to sift through, they have to do the sifting with their ears. 

Speaking as an audio editor, this isn’t nearly as useful or temporally economic as a visual website.  I like to think that my comic book podcast is somewhat of an exception to the rule.  If you’re a comic fan, we want to be the place for you to hear creators talk about their craft in their own lovely tones, enjoy some quality comic chat and even participate yourself on our live shows.  The nice perk over the years has been non-reader interest and their feedback in the show which they enjoy but don’t consider themselves comic readers. Their perspective keeps the shows relatable and valuable to those still scared to actually enter our favorite comic shop. 

This brings me full circle to today’s general idea, but in case you didn’t get the point of this paragraph:  LISTEN TO FANBOY RADIO, we try to be good to our listeners and readers, present and new.