Post by rberman on Jul 14, 2020 17:18:44 GMT -5
Thirty years ago when Marvel and DC were snapping up all the British talent in sight, Marvel's approach included a brief UK imprint known as Frontiers. It comprised three four-issue series, one two-issue series, and a special with shorts from each of the four series, before the plug was pulled. The four series were:
Mortigan Goth: Immortalis The best of the bunch, with story by Nick Vince and art by Mark Buckingham. A medieval man, now immortal after winning a Bergman-esque chess game with Mephisto, wanders modern Earth wishing to do good but afraid he'll pay for it once Mephisto claims him. Apart from being immortal, his other power is that he is super-compassionate, which I quite like as a concept. Vince spins a dense, delightful tale that not only works in Mephisto and Dr. Strange but even takes place at Falsworth Manor in England, which means that Baron Blood (in flashback) and WW2-era heroine Spitfire (in flashback and modern times) get to join the party. Sadly, the story ends on a cliffhanger. Buckingham's art recalls Paul Smith's smooth lines, which is fine by me.
Dances with Demons has story by Simon Jowett and art by early Charlie Adlard, later of The Walking Dead fame. What possessed a British author to write a series about Native American mythology, armed only with 1990s library references, is anybody's guess. As best I can tell it's one of those "monsters stalk the Chosen One before he comes into his powers, thus causing him to come into his powers" tales. Four issues ought to be enough for some expository character to arrive on the scene and explain what it all means, but I found it all rather confusing. Jowett confesses in a foreword that he was making it up page by page without a master plan. However, Adlard does turn in some cool, very nonstandard monster designs, presumably based on Indian art.
Children of the Voyager is a high-concept piece in which an author with insomnia and writer's block discovers that he's a golem with a borrowed soul, and his creator wants the soul back. Story is by Nick Abadzis with excellent, photo-referenced art by Paul Johnson. Unfortunately, the story is so high concept that almost the entire four issues consist of the protagonist sitting and listening to a Wise Woman giving exposition, and then at the end he makes one choice.
Bloodseed was writer/artist Paul Neary's self-conscious foray into the Forbidden Arts of Image Comics, with some Barry Windsor-Smith thrown in as well. The story is about a Conan clone in a post-apocalyptic Planet of the Apes world. "Conan clone" in the sense that the main character acts very Cimmerian, but also in the sense that he's a clone within the story. I think. This series only ran two issues, and he never got to the part where Mr. Exposition tells him his backplot and destiny.
Mortigan Goth: Immortalis The best of the bunch, with story by Nick Vince and art by Mark Buckingham. A medieval man, now immortal after winning a Bergman-esque chess game with Mephisto, wanders modern Earth wishing to do good but afraid he'll pay for it once Mephisto claims him. Apart from being immortal, his other power is that he is super-compassionate, which I quite like as a concept. Vince spins a dense, delightful tale that not only works in Mephisto and Dr. Strange but even takes place at Falsworth Manor in England, which means that Baron Blood (in flashback) and WW2-era heroine Spitfire (in flashback and modern times) get to join the party. Sadly, the story ends on a cliffhanger. Buckingham's art recalls Paul Smith's smooth lines, which is fine by me.
Dances with Demons has story by Simon Jowett and art by early Charlie Adlard, later of The Walking Dead fame. What possessed a British author to write a series about Native American mythology, armed only with 1990s library references, is anybody's guess. As best I can tell it's one of those "monsters stalk the Chosen One before he comes into his powers, thus causing him to come into his powers" tales. Four issues ought to be enough for some expository character to arrive on the scene and explain what it all means, but I found it all rather confusing. Jowett confesses in a foreword that he was making it up page by page without a master plan. However, Adlard does turn in some cool, very nonstandard monster designs, presumably based on Indian art.
Children of the Voyager is a high-concept piece in which an author with insomnia and writer's block discovers that he's a golem with a borrowed soul, and his creator wants the soul back. Story is by Nick Abadzis with excellent, photo-referenced art by Paul Johnson. Unfortunately, the story is so high concept that almost the entire four issues consist of the protagonist sitting and listening to a Wise Woman giving exposition, and then at the end he makes one choice.
Bloodseed was writer/artist Paul Neary's self-conscious foray into the Forbidden Arts of Image Comics, with some Barry Windsor-Smith thrown in as well. The story is about a Conan clone in a post-apocalyptic Planet of the Apes world. "Conan clone" in the sense that the main character acts very Cimmerian, but also in the sense that he's a clone within the story. I think. This series only ran two issues, and he never got to the part where Mr. Exposition tells him his backplot and destiny.
