Broken Frontier

Radical Publishing has certainly made a good impression in the short time they’ve been around. They’ve made an impression on me too. Their non-superhero titles and deluxe approach to visuals gives them an enviable position in the market place. Series such as Freedom Formula and the recently wrapped City of Dust are prime examples of their mission to offer unique tales.

Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead is their latest, and quite possibly, greatest outing. Written and drawn by Steve Pugh (who some may know from his Shark-Man series) it’s a highly entertaining sci-fi thriller, with a skeleton hand of horror bearing down upon it.

Alice Hotwire is an exorcist detective for the British police in a future not entirely unrecognisable. The cops are facing riots from an agitated public, while Hotwire, who is the only member of her department, faces a much deadlier problem. Hotwire, her partner Detective Mobey and some mean looking cops visit a huge underground cemetery. They meet Brendan Glenn, the lone survivor of a clean up crew, who is much more than he appears. Hotwire and her overwhelmed officers soon come face to ugly face with a trio of resurrected killers with razor edged appearances and scary abilities. Realising that she can’t always trust her hi-tech ghost killing gadgets, Alice is left alone to fend for herself while facing a tidal wave and apparently no way out.

Pugh has handled Hotwire beautifully with every issue. Sure, it’s based on initial story ideas by Warren Ellis, but this is Pugh’s show. He fleshes out enough of the characters around Hotwire, so that she doesn’t steal the show, but also manages to make her a loveable bad girl with real humanity and heroism. The last time I was this much in love with a fictional character was when I started reading X-Men in high school and saw Jim Lee’s Psylocke for the first time. Of course, the way Steve Pugh lusciously renders Alice Hotwire, it’s easy to be pleasantly distracted. Every page is a work of art and you may very well find yourself gazing at the pages longer than the story requires of you. He also lays out the pages and designs all the vehicles and gadgets with great flair.

Pugh really knows how to pace a comic. Every issue thus far has been a grand build up of set pieces culminating in a page, or two, or three that leap directly into the eyeballs and demand to be made into posters for the bedroom wall. This penultimate issue has a few such moments, but I won’t spoil them.

Too often series like this with a grand concept start with a bang and dissolve into a whimper. Hotwire is a glorious exception and is simply excitement unleashed. It’s also a movie begging to be made. With the success Radical have had already with Hollywood interest, I hope Hotwire will be next in line.