Broken Frontier

Classic horror actor Lon Chaney once famously remarked "There is nothing scarier than a clown after midnight."

Lon lived in simpler times.

Today, with a copy of the new graphic novel Whistles: The Starlight Calliope in hand, Lon would revise his statement: "There is nothing scarier than an alternate dimension crawling with cannibalistic circus people, Cthuloid creatures, a thriving sex trade and surreal flexible clowns. After, uh, midnight."

And then somebody would take Lon away.

But the sad thing is that Lon would barely have scratched the surface.

Whistles obviously isn't your garden-variety  clown saga: it's an entire universe, where the masses are entertained by clowns of global-star status. Our titular star, Whistles, finds himself drawn into the seamy underbelly of Mr. Pendlecoat's Starlight Calliope, and thrown from the only world he ever knows – the Big Top – into a bizarre world of spaceships, slug-things, sordid sex and unspeakable atrocities.

Will the heroic clown Gumblin be able to overthrow the nefarious Pendlecoat? Who will win the hand, and heart, of the delightful lady clown Doodlebean? And what is Pendlecoat's secret, and the secret of the Starlight Calliope?

Writer-artist Andrew Hussie has taken what might easily have been a one-note joke, and turned it into a fully realized universe. "I was as surprised as anyone to find out a quick gag about a cannibalistic clown conspiracy would unfold into something more broadly engaging of the human condition, especially in later chapters," said Hussie. "Whistles the Clown’s sick attachment to his master, who only wants to kill him, strikes me as very human. Humans are pathologically self-destructive, though goodhearted they may be."

Whistles the book also has the distinction of having been the flagship title for SLG Publishing's comics download service eyemelt.com . Copies of Whistles have been (and will continue to be) downloadable for $0.89 per issue, but reader response and demand led SLG publisher Dan Vado to create the TPB for the traditional print market.

"A comic book story as visceral and vibrant as Whistles needs to be held in one's hands in order to be fully appreciated," Vado said. "While we can debate the future of digital downloads, web comics and the like, nothing really beats the experience of holding an authors collected works in your hands."

Whistles Volume One: The Starlight Calliope will be 128 pages and retail for $10.95. It is available for pre-order from Diamond Comics now and will soon be available at SLG Publishing's website www.slgcomic.com and Amazon.com .

Readers looking for a distinct new blend of dark humor and melodrama (and a refreshing new voice in comics) won't be disappointed.

Don't tell Lon Chaney.