Broken Frontier

Well, all right: this is more like it! FB finds its feet, dishes out its best issue yet, and shines a spotlight on its most enticing strength: its patience.

After the ridiculously catastrophic consequences of dyeing his hair and letting his Uncle Ray witness the results, Sean nurses his numerous wounds by absconding for the afternoon with a local girl, Wendy. The duo fish for hours in a rowboat, flirt, rescue Sean from a near-debilitating fishhook injury, flirt, go to the movies and get in a fight with the local country boys, flirt, argue country/city dichotomies, and flirt some more. Sound adventurous? Well, in an odd way…it is.

Once again for the newcomers, a recap of the series and of the reviews: Family Bones is a semi-fictional thriller based on the true-life events of the oldest married couple on Missouri’s death row, Ray and Faye Copeland. The series is written by Shawn Granger (a distant relative to the aforementioned Copelands) and drawn by a playground full of up-and-coming artists, nearly every single issue of the 10-part series tag-teaming to a new, never-before-seen talent. I was intrigued by the first issue of the maxi, though felt that the narrative and the initial artist both suffered minor yet integral flaws. The second issue, however, won me over completely, bringing in an artist highly complimentary to the series’ concept, plus winnowing down on the handful of tempo hitches I’d noticed in the previous chapter. Then, sadly, I took it all back with issue numero tres; my last review harped strenuously on the un-believability of the events therein, the lack of love I held for the characters (of which I suspected the characterization was to blame, not my lack of empathic ability), and the somewhat unsuitable art.

Well, now here we are at the fourth entry to the epic, and – just as in issue #2 – the creative team is back to firing on all cylinders; but why is this? Why such extreme highs and lows with a single creator/writer attached and whom solo selects each and every illustrator as they come? I now believe it has to do with the pacing – the speed of the narrative flow; issue two focused on one sunny afternoon between Sean and Wendy, with only a small slice of additional event at the end. Issue four does the same, blow for blow. When Granger takes the time to flesh out the threadbare banality of both his setting (plain ol’ regular-world Missouri) and the people that populate it (plain ol’ backwater country boys and our one, resident city-bred hero), the undercurrent of horror the premise promises springs forth with a phenomenal, unexpected power. Basically, when the book slows its pacing to reveal the utterly bucolic side of the tale – of which, as an entertainment venture, can be wholly unprepossessing in appearance – the reader is unwittingly brought to the height of tension; we know what this comic is about, and therefore we know that something terrifying is on its way. The more we come to care for the characters, the more we see them in everyday, commonplace vistas doing ordinary, indelibly human activities, the more the sense of absolute dread is appropriately garnered.

Granger himself is at his best when authoring such slice-of-life mise en scène; his dialogue is brutally minimalist, mimicking the verisimilitude of real life, wherein there is an emphatic lack of constant, continual chatter. This has a profound effect upon any scene in which the writer grants the proper luxury of space to read realistically. In the quicker, more event oriented issues, the dearth of dialogue and absence of even a helpful, well-placed caption box, harries the reader through a series of all-too-brief sequences that never find the time nor space to feel convincing, and in such cases the allure of following a real-life horror story fizzles and fades. So my hat’s off to Granger on this latest chapter, wherein even the petite, mini-scene involving Ray and Faye reads succulently sinister thanks to the slow-burn build-up the rest of the issue entertains.

And lest I forget, Pablo Agustin Lordi – while not my favorite of the merry-go-round of artists so far (that honor goes to issue #2’s Benito Olea Bellido), he is absolutely a close runner-up, with a simple and straight-forward style that lacks the abundant awkwardness found in most young, unknown artists. His style reminds me of a young Jacen Burrows or Dan Parsons, with all the square-jawed faces and rigid-yet-relaxed postures such indie super-stars gift their every figure. Protagonist Sean is a tough-looking but lanky kid under Lordi’s pen (which is just how he should be according to the story), and Uncle Ray is pitch perfect: unsophisticated and unassuming, but holy cow – there’s death in them eyes!

I hope the story flows more easily from here on in, with more quiet moments of build-up and less overplaying of Ray’s instability and Faye’s unconcerned intensity. The payoff should be beautiful and horrific and satisfying to the extreme, but as there’s still six issues to go, the ride there needs to be equally as compelling for the comic to find its proper audience. Hopefully Granger can keep in mind the cliché (but – in this case at least – absolutely true) "less is more" rule and readers can continue to be presented with issues as perfectly balanced and affecting as Family Bones #4. Fingers crossed!

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For more Family Bones and King Tractor Press products, go to: www.kingtractorfilms.com/press.html