Broken Frontier

A journey into a young man’s unconscious dreams leads to bizarre imagery, an unusual dinner party, danger and most importantly, deceit.

The Crumpleton Experiments has undoubtedly been the sleeper hit of 2004 in the Australian comics scene. Its creator, Daniel Reed, deservedly won accolades from the industry by winning the Bronze Ledger Award for Writer of the Year (2004), securing the Gold Ledger for Independent Press Title of the Year (2004). It is not hard to see why. Daniel has used his deceptively simple set-up; an early 20th Century inventor and his assistant delve into the subconscious mind for adventure and scientific discovery, to tell rather complex and engaging stories. Last issue saw Professor Crumpleton and his assistant Wendy Brown, join up with the sinister Dr. Lucerne to investigate the mind of a young man.

Crumpleton is snatched away from the others by naked, flying mother figures and taken on a journey into why the young man feels so smothered by his overbearing mum. Meanwhile, Wendy Brown and Lucerne try to track the Professor down but get caught up in another section of the young man’s subconscious. They are invited to dinner by Queen Elizabeth and an assortment of deformed guests who are routinely beaten about the head by a crocodile in a nun’s suit. This is all well and good except for the fact that Lucerne has a sinister objective and has a secret power over Wendy that could get them stuck in someone else’s subconscious for ever…

Reed’s writing has improved no end since his earlier issues and I came away from this issue with my mind spinning. He has managed to tell a thoroughly bizarre story, yet somehow keep it all together with the characters that we already know and understand. His villain in this piece, Lucerne, is suitably dangerous because of his irrationality and greed. I spent a good portion of time after finishing this book trying to decipher some of the more bizarre elements of this dream narrative.

It is Reed’s art; however, that is the real deal clincher. His dream landscapes are mind bogglingly complex and there is a determined intricacy to many of the panels that bear looking at for quite a long time. He has also managed to really imbibe his pages with a sense of macabre darkness. The story is already pretty dark and the art doesn’t over do this, rather it contains its danger in a restrained fashion so that it appears to be hiding behind the eyes of the characters and behind corners. This allows some of the humorous elements of the story to shine.

The Crumpleton Experiments is the book to read if you want to get into some of the best of Australian comics right now! It can be purchased online at http://www.phasetwocomics.com.

-Matthew Clark