Broken Frontier

This anthology comic lives up to its name with various quirky and unusual little tales from a pair of new creators.

An aging urban vigilante stages a daring escape from a nursing home. A diminutive Martian claims revenge upon a roving space probe. A mysterious being reaches through time and space to pluck a champion from the Middle Ages and possibly save all mankind. These are among the stories in the appropriately named small press comic, Random Ink. The brainchild of Seth Wolfshorndl and Elton Gahr, this comic features several short, often bizarre vignettes in a variety of artistic styles.

The first of these, "Bullets and Bedpans," focuses on a retired Punisher-esque vigilante, the Rebuker. Once feared on the streets of Edge City, Jack Flint is now simply a deluded old man with a walker and a serious grudge against the world. After somehow acquiring a semi-automatic rifle, the Rebuker stands ready to shoot his way to freedom and resume his war on crime if a young man called Toby and an overzealous SWAT commander don’t stop him first. The sheer absurdity of this story is quite enjoyable, as is the Rebuker’s satirically intense inner monologue. The Rebuker’s foe, Captain Logheart, is also rather comically over-the-top, evidently still fighting a decades-old conflict that has long since petered out. It’s all rendered in an appealing cartoonist style by Wolfshorndl, making this the strongest and most amusing chapter of the comic.

Wolfshorndl then changes gears, first with a nicely illustrated but rather brief silent sequence following the journey of a falling leaf. It’s an interesting experiment but I’m not certain that the two page story leaves the reader with very much impact. This is followed by "Dark Was the Night," a meditation on the life of jazz musician Blind Willie Johnson. I was impressed by Wolfshorndl’s ability to work in a completely different artistic style for this tale, mixing realism with impressionistic techniques and giving it a dramatic appearance with white lines against a stark black background. The result almost resembles an elegant wood carving and it achieves an appropriately somber tone.

The humor and ridiculous elements return in "The Last Martian," another silent sequence driven by the artwork. In this case, the technique does indeed pay off as the bug-eyed and suspicious look of the Martian is hilarious and Wolfshorndl’s use of facial expressions is very effective. He shows a great deal of creativity in the placement and design of the panels as well. The Martian’s struggles with a NASA Mars rover reminded me of a classic Wile E. Coyote formula and again, the sheer zaniness of the story works to its advantage.

The final sequence of the issue is "Intervention," a text story by Gahr with illustrations by Wolfshorndl. Though a bit arcane at first, this sci-fi tale builds into an intriguing setup for what will presumably be a continuing segment of Random Ink. The story focuses on an alien guardian (similar in some ways to Marvel’s Watcher) plucking a murdered knight from the timestream to confront a threat to the human race. More serious in tone than some of the stories, "Intervention" creates a fish-out-of-water scenario and mixes elements of fantasy and science fiction. I would be interested to see where the tale goes.

For such a small mini-comic, Random Ink is packed with ideas and creativity. Wolfshorndl and Gahr have definite potential. If you’re interested in checking out this comic, further info can be found at http://www.threetreesstudios.com/store.htm

-Eric Lindberg