Broken Frontier

A wielder who has a mysterious connection to God, two priests whispering about a secret & the stability of the faith in a church basement, and a team of urban terrorists launch an assault on a power plant.

All of this is somehow connected and is linked to a dark war brewing in the background.  Zero issues are a way to whet the appetite for an upcoming series and Dellec #0 reads like the opening chapter to a Dan Brown novel.  This is keen timing on Aspen’s part, given Angels and Demons' success at the box office.  However, the eponymous hero is no bookworm in over his head, but a Jason Statham-type action hero.  Dellec is wielding the weapons he will use to fight the evil that quite literally darkens his city.

There is not a whole lot given away in this first issue.  However, there is the feeling that not a page of the comic story is wasted: all the major players in what is to come have been introduced and the book serves its purpose in raising the reader’s curiosity.  It is not as revelatory as, say, Avatar Press' Black Summer #0, but that book will probably remain the gold standard preview issue for some time to come.  However, Dellec #0 does provide some sense of story development as opposed to empty advertising.

The back matter is interesting and provides an interview with the creators where the questions were chosen from posters at Aspen’s website.  The interviewers were awarded a Dellec-related prize and the publication of their query in this issue.  This is the kind of viral campaign that all small press books should be doing.  It gets the fans involved in the book, making them feel like the publisher really cares about their input, which may mean a more sustainable property for Aspen in the end.

The art by Gunnell is splendid.  It walks a line between more mainstream art like Mike Norton peppered with both a European influence (not dissimilar to the work of Ivan Rodriguez on Doktor Sleepless) and some of the angled manga influence of the stylings of the publisher’s founder, Michael Turner.  Gunnell's line rendering and the dynamic coloring by Hollingsworth give the book a smart look to match the script’s cinematic feel.

Dellec #0 it is an intriguing prelude for a series that looks to be a heavy actioner with a healthy dose of religious thriller thrown in.  You can color this reader as curious.