Broken Frontier

On the plains 40,000 years ago, a tribe of Neanderthals struggles for survival in the paleolithic world.

Part of the Frank Frazetta inspired line of comics, Image presents the Neanderthal one-shot. Being an almost silent issue, the story in Neanderthal is visual and visceral, as the stereotypical depiction of the pre-homo sapiens species tends to be. A tribe in distress, the group of Neanderthals suffers from hunger and infighting as a new threat to their existence appears.

Chris Ryall succeeds in scripting a nearly silent comic, with the only words being sound effects and two establishing captions. I am not sure if the choice was made in order to suggest that Neanderthals did not speak, or just to convey raw emotions. There is anthropological debate on how developed the speech patterns of these early men were, so it could be either. The story is surprisingly complex, with a conflict between the tribal members subject to interpretation, but suggesting some interesting cultural customs. That is not to say that the story lacks in action. A tremendous opening sequence pits a Neanderthal against a sabretooth tiger.

The artwork by Tim Vigil and Jay Fotos is at times brilliant, but surprisingly inconsistent. In some parts, particularly the beginning, the coloring becomes part of the rendering, giving it a painted quality. Further on it reverts to a more classic black ink line with the painted color. It is all high quality, but I am not sure why it changes part of the way through. The layouts are also inconsistent. Some pages are beautifully designed with varied camera angles, and others are all head-shots or medium body shot views with very little differentiation. The artists excell at facial expressions however, vital to the silent story. The monochromatic coloring scheme works very well, the earth-tones enhancing the melancholy nature of a dying species. The entire color palette for the issue is drawn from the exceptional painting of Mr. Frazetta himself.

I was a little surprised to see the one-shot conclude with what in my mind is a cliffhanger ending. Without giving too much away, I would have preferred to see a confrontation play out rather than stick to the classic stereotypical interpretation of Neanderthal man's fate. The story is a very good execution of a familiar interpretation of pre-history, I would just rather see how they handle the rest of it instead of leaving it open.  This was my first encounter with the new Frazetta line, and its certainly good enough to go back for more.