Broken Frontier

Mike Baron’s latest work, The Architect, is a terrifying tale of man, monster, and myth, all set in the quaint Wisconsin wilderness.

It is 1969, Roak Dexter Smith, described in the book as something of a bon vivant, can do many things, not the least of which is designing buildings with an artistic and at times eerie slant. On top of his designing skills, he is a "beguiler, womanizer, amateur mycologist, and expert violinist . . . ."

As the story begins he is in the process of building "Bluff House" when things get strange. It seems Mr. Smith is involved in something of a fungus cult; it seems Mr. Smith’s lovely young wife is involved with Mr. Smith’s handsome young assistant, and finally it seems Bluff House will be remembered by history for very different reasons than its creator intended. When we fast forward to the present and the orphaned son of Roak Dexter Smith inherits Bluff House things really start to unravel.

Yes, Mike Baron’s graphic novel, originally seen online in weekly installments from Big Head Press at www.bigheadpress.com will be officially jumping from your computer screen and hitting the stands on August 15 2007, just in time for the harvest season—a notoriously productive season for fungus. Coincidence? Methinks not. Mike Baron, as most comic book fans know, is the co-creator of the now classic superhero book Nexus, as well as The Badger, and the writer of several other licensed properties from the likes of DC and Marvel. He is an award nominee and winner and with The Architect, he proves that all of the accolades are not for naught.

Disturbing from the first page, The Architect can best be described as a good "R" rated horror film on paper. The villain, Roak Dexter Smith, who bares an uncanny resemblance to the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, is so devilishly evil and driven that there are times while reading you will wonder if this book is going to end with the bad guy standing victorious over the corpses of all the heroes. I won’t give it away, but to say that some of the death scenes are not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. This isn’t some PG-13 crap all the kids will be talking about on Monday. This is a truly gory horror meant to do little more than scare.

Much like most good horror movies there is little complexity or character development and here that is a good thing. You know who the antagonist is. You know who the protagonist is. You know how they are connected. And you know that the villain will do all sorts of nasty things to torment the hero. With this story you don’t need anything else. Mike Baron’s genius is evident here. Where in other books he has gone for complications and twists, plot lines that develop slowly, meticulously and characters who change and grow, sometimes behaving villainously and other times behaving heroically.

This sort of story doesn’t call for that. Baron knows it would only make the reader weary. The way he tells The Architect is the way a good, gory, frightening horror should be told. You may walk away with questions as to the whys and fors, but with this kind of story those questions really do not matter. All that matters is you were scared.

One thing that could have taken away from the tale being told is the art. A simple scary comic book tome would fall flat on its face with horrible art. Andie Tong makes sure that does not happen. Tong’s art has been seen all over comic book land. He has penciled everything from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe for Image to Spectacular Spider-Man for Marvel UK.

In The Architect it is clear that Tong is surely going places. His style relies heavily on sharp, heavy lines, angular designs, and over-the-top characterization, which makes it a comfortable fit for a gruesome horror story with scenes of self-mutilation, giant fungus monsters, and elaborate structures normally too strange to really work. Mike Kilgore then paints with a powerful brush because the colors, much like the story, jump out at you with unapologetic clarity.

This story is just that, unapologetically clear. Baron is not going for an earth shattering story of unending importance with The Architect. Instead, he is telling the terrifying yarn that will, thanks to Tong’s art, leave images in your head that you might wish had never found a home there.