Broken Frontier

At first glance I thought NOX might be a product of an overzealous wannabe, but to my astonishment, the GN I am holding in my hands has surprised me in more ways than one.

“NOX is a self-aware, low fantasy populated equally by mystical gurus, urban hipsters, Everyman characters, and dark forces bent on tipping our drab, mundane world into shadows,” author Shon C. Bury describes.

While all of that is indeed true, there is more. Much more. First we have Joey King, the appointed hero of NOX. He is a highly intelligent grad-student who has communication problems with his girlfriend and has an obnoxious but witty and true best friend called Bobby. Joey receives a package with mysterious, ancient artifacts and in trying to figure out why he got this package, as well as determining the origin of these items, Joey is attacked by demons. Luckily, he is saved by a transvestite nun.

A transvestite nun? Just telling about this makes me cringe, but the reading experience was indeed one of those many surprises the writer came up with to boggle minds!

Anyway, the nun is also a Doorkeeper to another dimension and since Joey is the newly appointed guardian of the Universe (yes, really!), both Joey and his friend Bobby travel through the door to that dimension where a Goddess lies in a coma and where the new band of brothers needs to battle evil troops as well as the Ultimate Evil Doppelganger. The battle is to make sure the Balance is restored of course.

Whether you saw Labyrinth or The Never-Ending Story or Lord of the Rings... so many aspects are similar, but again, it is the writer/creator who makes these loose elements connect magically into a piece that stands out... and stand out it does!

Back to the aforementioned band of brothers which is complemented by Glen(da) the Centaur, whose verbal encounters with the humans are just as hilarious (the human race is not worth saving) as his appearance (bright blue with a Rainbow Brite ponytail while also changing gender unexpectedly!) is wondrous.

Like any fantasy story, there is an ensuing battle with baddies called the Krill and you know (because comics are stories and most are about hope and not about despair) it will all end well but as with so many adventures, it is the road to be traveled which is the goal and not reaching the destination!

The road in this GN is paved abundantly with a never-ending bombardment of one-liners and phrases like "You were about one second away from comparing yourself to Shiva, Lucifer and Doctor Doom all wrapped together in a tortilla by HP Lovecraft while Hitler shoved the Spear of Destiny up his kazoo." These lines are the true power of the story. Some of it may be understood only if the right amount of geekiness has been acquired over the years, but in this case, it's more effective in making you think about the diversity of the writer and the way his ideas, views, and geekiness have been transferred into the comic.

The well-balanced story is supported by art and format and while the format is a tad small, the art is not affected in its portrayal of the story itself. The art by Allan Goldman is nice to look at, has lovely complementary vibrant coloring courtesy of Ed Waysek III, and the facial expressions are spot on. The whole package and the extra "DVD"-commentary by the creative team, make NOX well-deserving of a purchase.