Broken Frontier

Comics publishing house  Markosia is probably most famous for being the house that delivers a healthy dose of Starship Troopers and Kong, King of Skull Island to readers. Recently they have scored a cult hit with The Boy Who Made Silence, a visual masterpiece with an engaging story which I heartily recommend to everyone.

And now they have tackled that most monstrous of commercial beasts, the anthology. The high concept being new UK talent cutting loose. The illustrative side of things has been handled with good editorial care, a high level of drawing skills is present here with many of the artists seemingly ready for mainstream comics. The art ranges from realistic watercolors to cartoony animation-style. Proper care has been taken in teaming up the writer and artist and all stories have a nice flow to them. Markosia has provided the Frontier with a lot of preview images so click on the comic pages to view the big images.

The anthology opens with one of the strongest stories of the bunch ‘Seniors’. Peter Rogers' tale about two former adversaries meeting in an old men’s home sports natural dialogue and the realistic watercolor art of Azim Akberali (think Alex Ross here). It shows flair and builds on the superhero template of the Silver Age. One of the better EC-style stories in there is also by their hands. ‘Eye of the Storm’ is drawn by Akberali with pencils and ink and sets a great mood for this Vietnam tale with a mystical twist. It has good character work from writer and artist alike and the short format serves the story well. Another strong feature is ‘Rise and Shine’. Written by Ian Sharman it tells a Buffy-lite tale rooted in Egyptian mythology (something that seems to pop up a lot in this volume). Shine is a teenage girl with incredible powers, having fun, living life, knocking down bad guys along the way. The incredible art of Eric M Smith feels like a mix of Cory Walker and Josh Middleton. It has a great flow and very fun atmosphere. It’s not as out there as Street Angel used to be but offers a more straightforward adventure story. It is probably not a coincidence that both ‘Seniors’ and ‘Rise and Shine’ are the only two features that continue on into the next volume. Both creators seem to know that they hit a good beat on those stories.

Peter Rogers seems to be the most promising writer which is a good thing because he writes three stories out of eleven while Ian Sharman, who writes five stories in Eleventh Hour proves to be good at ideas and dialogue but a bit weak on payoff (like on ‘Danick and the Dragon’, a funny riff on medieval knights-stories but with a weak ending). Cherie Donovan is the weakest, riffing off tripe concepts especially in ‘The Mist’. A similar idea is present in ‘Ghost Boy’ by Sharman where it is explored in a much more satisfying manga-style instead of the nineties superhero blandness Donovan exhibits in ‘The Mist’ and on top of that it is coupled with a bad inner monologue of the protagonist ‘They see only destruction and death, where I see a chance for life, and I am one with it.’ Yes. Of course they do Mist, of course they do.

Eleventh Hour is a promising showcase of talents with highs and lows but there are a few gems in there and talent worth watching. Eric M Smith and Azim Akberali are two creators ready for prime time while especially scribe Peter Rogers seems deserving of a bigger audience. For ten dollars, you get to dream away into world of sci-fi, horror, adventure and humor created by talent that is still fresh and working their way through the trenches, ready to go over the top and meet the comics industry head on!

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Eleventh Hour from Markosia costs $9.99  and can be ordered through the Diamond Previews catalogue or through your local store. It will be on sale on June 05, 2008.