Broken Frontier

In this book are stories creepy, funny, sweet, sad, and gross. Welcome to the supernaturally off-kilter world of Agnes Quill: an Anthology of Mystery .

16 year-old Agnes Quill inherited her grandfather’s castle and the knick-knack shop at the base of the castle in the strange city of Legerdemain.  Oh, and she also inherited her grandfather’s ability to see and speak with wandering spirits, undead creatures, and general “things that go bump in the night”.  Being an orphan, Agnes must make her own way in the world and she soon hits on the perfect plan – she will become a detective, also like her grandfather.  Nothing about this situation is normal though, so it should come as no surprise that some of Agnes’s clients are no longer living.  Not that this bothers Agnes in the least.  A spirit seeking a hidden necklace, a man searching for his lost legs, mysterious power outages and a race of people living underground are just a few of the cases that Agnes handles over the course of this anthology.

All of the stories in this volume share the same writer, namely Dave Roman, but each tale has a vastly different artist.  While to some this may make the book seem uneven, the result is actually quite fun.  While the writing mixes gothic horror with a modern, punky wit, each artist’s renderings help play up different aspects of Roman’s style and emphasize different parts of the stories.  On the first tale, for example, Jason Ho’s detailed work and dark inks emphasize Agnes’s spunky look and attitude and his rendering of the city of Legerdemain in particular shines.  The architecture Ho creates merges Victorian London with early 20th century New York in a way that can only exist in the wildest of imaginations.

This contrasts drastically with Raina Telgemeier’s truly cartoony style on the next story, “Lost and Found”.  What Telgemeier’s work brings out here is the whimsical aspects of the writing, as well as the surprisingly sweet core of Agnes trying to help a ghostly little girl.

Next up is Jeff Zornow, whose style has a bit more in common with the traditional comic book look.  The incredible levels of detail in Zornow’s work points up the horror elements as Agnes struggles to help a man cursed by zombie ex-girlfriends.  The artist then turns around and adds dashes of a Byronic romanticism to the second part of the story, regarding a race of people dwelling underground. 

Finally, there is the story completely told by Dave Roman himself.  His art has a lovely, sweet, childish look that fits so well in a story about a truly lost child.  On the other hand, the style provides an ironic contrast to the dark subject matter and quirky parts of the tale.

The four stories in this volume are also joined by copious amounts of prose material in the back, also excellently illustrated.  There is a full character guide and Agnes’s diary, which fills in some of the blanks between the stories.  A pin-up gallery rounds things out. 

Agnes Quill is one of those characters around which stories are written that trips the reader up and throws them deliciously off balance.  The world she inhabits is like something out of time and yet, belonging to all times as well.  Just when the reader thinks the story is pacing along in familiar territory, it suddenly takes a turn into the strange, bizarre, and supernatural.  The fact that all the characters in these stories take such happenings for granted only adds to the surreal nature.

The plucky girl detective has long been a staple in Mystery fiction, from Trixie Belden to Nancy Drew, but Agnes Quill brings a modern twist and a hint of the macabre to the mix.  Quill is a smart, sharp, and practical heroine and the comics aficionado can consider reading about her exploits time well spent.