Broken Frontier

Palmiotti tries to do something different by funding a comic with Kickstarter, and gets a good one-shot down.

Queen Crab got a fair amount of press in the comic scene for its unusual approach to production. Instead of going to the big guys, pitching the story, and making money off of sales down the road, Jimmy Palmiotti went straight to Kickstarter, allowing fans to fund the book before it comes out. Various pledge rewards were included, ranging from a PDF of the book, signed copies, to in-store and convention appearances. The Kickstarter exceeded its goal of $8,000, and the book was well on its way to completion. It'll hit shelves in February, but the PDF copy of the main story is largely done, with only two additional pages to be completed (and the entirety of the back matter to be assembled).

Queen Crab is the story of Ginger, a woman that's not exactly happy with her life, but gets by. She regularly hooks up with a good friend and is marrying a man that loves her, but also regularly hooks up with someone. It's not the ideal situation, but the guy likes her, and since she gets action on the side, she can't complain too much. When her new husband tries to kill her by tossing her overboard on their honeymoon cruise, she wakes up on the beach naked and mysteriously endowed with giant arms that belong to a crab. Ginger must find out what happened to her and figure out how to continue on with her life. Can she go back to deadly wedlock, or can she strive for a new path and actually be happy for once?

Palmiotti is one of the consistently strongest regular writers out there. He strays from doing event books (but will do tie-ins, as see in Flashpoint: Deathstroke and the Curse of the Ravager), but books with Justin Gray such as Jonah Hex, All-Star Western, Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, and Power Girl frequently earned critical praise, and deservedly so. On his own, he does well here. Queen Crab runs free of any continuity or superhero tropes; when Ginger's transformed, she doesn't put on spandex and fight undersea crime, although the natural allusion to Aquaman is made. It's a story that, beyond the supernatural crab element (which is completely glossed over; it happened, nobody knows why or how, and only late in the story does Ginger attempt to seek out the truth), works as a real-world situation with realistic characters. Ginger's not too happy about her life, and will basically take whatever works at the time. You're supposed to get married, this guy seems to like you, that works. You hate your job but it pays, you have to do sexual favors for your boss, but hey, there's really good heath insurance. We've all been in the position where we don't attempt to break free of our situation and would rather embrace the one we're in, or at least try to find the bright side of it.

With Amanda Conner editing the book, Artiz Eiguirem tackles the art chores for the main story. Almost a proto combination of the Luna Brothers, Gene Ha, and Frank Quitely, the work isn't perfect, but it's so right for the character. It's not a beautiful world the characters live in, and they themselves aren't pretty, but it's realistic, even when it comes to giant crab claws. It lacks the polish of a major artist book, but Kevin Smith wasn't a major director when he filmed Clerks, and that movie has stood the test of time and kickstarted an incredible career.

Queen Crab is a quality experiment, and will hopefully be followed up by more productions like this. When it hits shelves in February, make sure to give it a look.