Broken Frontier

The Columbus collective known as Panel produces their 5th anthology; this one centered on the idea of "Myth," and it’s a nice example of small press publications.

The creators over at Panel have been gathering and discussing comics for quite some time. And over the years they have decided to get together and put out some of their own. Each book has followed a single theme, and the one chosen for this one is the idea of Myth. Leaving such a broad topic has allowed each creator (or team) to tackle this subject however they see fit and it gives a nice little variety to the anthology. All in all, there are six stories within this book (if you want to be technical only five would be classified by my old English teachers as stories, with the other one more an example of visual poetry). In order, they are Divinity Crisis, The Sun Mother’s Home, America, Seahorse, The Six Archons, and Cyclops Cowboy in Stakeout. They range from the comedic (Divinity Crisis) to the aforementioned visual poetry of The Six Archons. Seeing as how they don’t have an abundance of space to work with, each story is self contained within a few pages and easily accessible to any reader.

The first story, Divinity Crisis by Craig Bogart, is an obvious play off of the recent DC Comics mega event, Identity Crisis. It involves a detective coming to a house to solve a murder mystery. While basically well done on all sides, this is a story that suffers from its own crisis of identity. Stuck with little space to flesh out his story, the character motivations developed within the story are weak, slightly cliché, and depend too much on outside knowledge of the well known figures in the story. Also, it seems like Bogart is unsure as to the intelligence of his reader, as there is an Einstein joke in here that goes over my head, yet with one look at the victim, I’m left wondering why they were even worried about his death. The artwork for the story lends more to a cartoonist’s style, easier with the icons he has chosen as characters, which helps to add some humor into the story as well. All of which is inked to perfection.

The story, The Sun Mother’s Home, is a little better done. This one is the tale of a mother and child who have been sent away from their village and are traveling to join their family. The story itself includes the telling of a myth, and when you get to the end, everything makes sense. Well written and exceptionally drawn in two styles, this story is a nice antecedent to the first tale of the book.

The next story, America, is possibly the weakest in the whole book. Telling the tale of a future war veteran and his life after being handicapped, it seemingly travels too many roads and tries to do too much. I can’t tell if it’s optimistic or pessimistic and if it wanted to play with war clichés that much, choosing an actual war and the problems brought on by it would have been better than making one up to take place in the future. Similarly, the artwork seems hastily done. Where the amount of detail in the artwork could have significantly helped the story, it seems like creator Tony Goins was stepping over himself trying to say everything he wanted.

At least, artwise, the best portion of the book is Glenn Brewer’s Seahorse. Telling the tale of a centaur fighting for the love of a woman, Seahorse is a silent piece. In the artwork, Brewer manages to convey all the tension and emotions needed to tell the tale. His images are wonderful and his stylized line work makes the pages come alive like none other in the book. Somehow, Brewer seems to have made the most of his portion by using no words at all.

The final two pieces in the book are the ones that will be either "love’em" or "hate’em" stories. The Six Archons by Matt Kish starts with a brief description of some gods, and then has drawings of them on the pages that follow. Not really a story at all, Kish’s artwork somehow is incredibly detailed, yet still feels very amateurish. There’s some good design here, but something just feels off a bit. He should have figured a way to work a continuous theme of dialogue throughout the drawings to tie it together better, rather than just a set of drawings. And finally, Cyclops Cowboy in Stakeout is one of those irreverent stories that at first glance won’t make any sense to anyone. I’m still not sure who the characters are or why they’re doing what they’re doing, but there is some funny dialogue and the stylized artwork enforces the nature of the story. You’ll either laugh uncontrollably or sit there and scratch your head while you read it.

In the end, Panel #5: Myth is the perfect example of small press books. It contains some really good work by the creators, and somehow even the shortcomings have their own sense of charm. If you’re interested in reading books by people who love and study the comic book medium, check this book out.