Broken Frontier

Gus confronts death as he travels through a mind-bending and gorgeous world.

Jeff Lemire continues to the build the tension through issue #24 of Sweet Tooth.  Instead of rushing through Gus’ trauma from a gunshot wound, Lemire slows the action down and builds the tension to an all-new high. 

Moving directly out of the final scene from issue #23, we find a distraught Jeppard cradling Gus as the boy quickly slips away from life.  Cutting between scenes of the hardened man trying his absolute hardest to save the boy is Gus’ travels through an eerie landscape of distorted figures and skeleton guides.  Jeppard’s battles in the tangible world could not be more complementary to each other; on the one hand, he is reforming his lost affection and love for Gus as he battles to revive him, while simultaneously he continues to destroy the bonds he has built with Singh, Walter, and Lucy.  The mistrust that has festered between the group continues to build to the inevitable climax.

The vast majority of the storytelling in issue #24 is silent, favoring expressive and supernatural images instead of exposition.  Lemire’s newly utilized painted art style is the perfect match for such a mind-bending story.  The double-page spread of Gus discovering a deformed and mangled tree with the hanging skeletons of those he’s lost is made extra powerful by of the gorgeous and spooky art.  Likewise, Gus’ last scene as he travels through a giant and exaggerated deer face and confront death is the most beautiful single page of the week.  The skyline behind the larger-than-life visage is aflame with gorgeous reds and oranges while the ocean is crashing with deep blues.

Sweet Tooth is one of the best series being published in the industry.  The slow and methodical pace that Lemire utilizes completely capitalizes on the heart-breaking and emotional story.  Issue #24 reinforces that by focusing on Gus and his painful story as he wanders through the beautiful and eerie landscape and slowly loses his grip on the real world.