Broken Frontier

Lemire takes The Invisible Man and puts it in small town America.

Large Mouth is a small town. Population 754. When number 755 shows up, the little town where nothing happens becomes a bustling hub of suspicion and fear.

Griffen is new to town. He gets the town talking when he shows up covered in bandages from head to toe. Only feeding fuel to the gossip fires, he then turns into a recluse, rarely exiting his motel room. The townspeople begin to wonder what is up with their new arrival and fear begins to enter the picture.

In an isolated town, oddity is not welcome. Much less when it is not explained. Large Mouth is already plagued by one nut down by the water, crazed after his wife died in a car accident. Young Vickie is restless and wants more out of life, so she is drawn to this strange man and enters into a bizarre friendship.

Vickie is the real lead here. She is the character struggling with her place and identity in the world. Griffen is merely a catalyst for her coming of age. She latches onto Griffen because he is different and maybe as a bit of rebellion against her father. An honest friendship grows between the two that is threatened as the secret that the stranger keeps grasps a hold of him. Will Vickie discover his terrible secret and what causes the town to form a posse and hunt him down?

Lemire uses the skills of portraying a rural area that were on display in Essex County to great effect here. He creates an isolated world, not as removed as the locals of Whiteout or 30 Days of Night, but just as claustrophobic. Spinning out of this, he creates a taut thriller that finds its origins in the inherent dislike humans find in things they can’t understand or relate to.

It is the perfect locale for Griffen to try to hide from his past and attempt to correct an experiment gone wrong. Unfortunately, the townspeople aren’t willing to leave well enough alone and despite some of the more level headed folks’ feelings, Griffen eventually becomes the target for hate and fear.

It is an interesting study in human nature and the meaning of identity that Lemire gives a frantic pace. It reads quick, not because it is sparse on dialogue, but because it reaches a balance between heady allegory and Dan Brown-like page turn-ability. It is a page turner that demands the reader’s attention from start to finish, relentlessly pushing forward with tension growing and mysteries being revealed at seemingly every turn.

It almost feels like a Hitchcock film. Part of this is due to Lemire’s cinema photographic art. He uses wide shots and inventive layouts to produce great visual effects. When Griffen dives into water and you see his bandages falling to the side, it is like he is coming apart, but more importantly, it almost moves on the printed page. There are times when things seem to be melting and this little town seems to close in on the reader.

This is done through his fine line and atmospheric mood. The blue, black and whites fill the page and add a sense of dusk to the whole proceedings while giving it an empty, clean feeling. When the snow falls, the reader shivers. This is not photo realistic art by any means, but it is palatable in its emotional and storytelling ability.

Those who are being introduced to the artist’s work through this book are in for a treat. It is instantly more satisfying than Essex County, which is brilliant, but only in its entirety. The individual pieces of that epic are not nearly as satisfying or gripping as this entry. The Nobody is as perfect a comic thriller as I have ever read and proof that Lemire is a brilliant graphic novelist.